


My promise is I will hurt you

by Tasers_and_Mischief



Series: Soulmate Playlist [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Background Relationships, Darcy Lewis's Taser, Darcy Lewis's iPod, Darcy Lewis-centric, Dom Loki (Marvel), F/M, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Jane Foster & Darcy Lewis Friendship, Just tagging some things I forgot to throw in because they're a thing., Light BDSM, Minor Jane Foster/Thor, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Sub Darcy Lewis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2019-10-02 14:32:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 22,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17265908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tasers_and_Mischief/pseuds/Tasers_and_Mischief
Summary: Darcy knew this was a bad idea. But she couldn't help diving into the path of the Bifrost. She had to meet him. She needed to.She had to meet him at least once.





	1. Maybe it's fear that leads your rage

**Author's Note:**

> This started from a writing prompt. It's definitely still in progress. I won't have a steady posting schedule. I'll post chapters as they finish up. Please be advised that this fic is canon-compliant up to the beginning of Thor: The Dark World. The most important change to this is, there is no Ian. I know it's minor, but it's a thing I need to make clear.
> 
> All chapter titles, as well as the fic title, taken from the lyrics of In This Moment tracks. Fic title is from the song The Promise, prologue title from Natural Born Sinner.

When a child is born, they are marked, typically on the inside of their left forearm. It is not done to them, it simply _is_. Usually this mark consists of two simple numbers and a name. The name of their soulmate, and how old their soulmate would be when they met.  
  
Amarissa Darceline Lewis never fit in with her peers for one disturbing reason.  
  
Her soulmate, according to her mark, would be over one thousand years old by the time she met him. On top of that, his name wasn’t written in a language that soulmarks were often found in, at least in her small town upbringing. His name was written in Norse runes. When she was eight, she gave in and found a book on the runic alphabet, and decided that Fate had played the ultimate joke.  
  
Her soulmate _couldn’t_ be Loki, god of mischief. It just wasn’t possible.

* * *

It wasn’t normal for an Aesir to born Unmarked. Yet as long as he could remember, Loki had never worn a soulmark upon his arm.  
  
That all changed when Thor decided to assault Jotunheim with exactly five other people, Loki included. The fighting was fast and bloody — and life-altering. Because not only did Loki have his entire world foundation shaken when a Jotun took hold of his arm, his skin turning from pale Aesir to Jotun sapphire.  
  
With ink black writing on his inner arm.  
  
_Darcy_.  
  
He had a soulmate.  
  
Her name was Darcy.  
  
And she would be only twenty-six when they met.  
  
The funniest thing was that, when his skin returned to what he perceived as normal, the soulmark remained. Stark black lines against fair skin saying, _I’m still just like everyone else_. To make things stranger, the writing was shockingly similar to the Jane that Thor had sported as long as they could remember. She’d be just thirty-seven, when Thor met her.


	2. Fall into the violet skies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy hitches a ride.

“Darcy!”

Jane was calling from the small living room of the flat they were all crammed into in London — it was tiny, but it felt like home.

“Coming!” Darcy called back, tugging her long sleeve back into place. She made excuses nowadays. Things like  _I burn really easily in the sun and I don’t want my soulmark to fade_ or  _My natural body temperature is a little higher than the norm, so I get a chill faster than most people_ . Anything to hide that four-digit number on her arm.

Then again, Jane had the same number, the same runic lettering. But her soulmate was  _Thor_ . The god of thunder. It was because of her that he always wore his bracers when he fought. An Avenger couldn’t have a quantifiable weakness that people could come after.

Maybe Darcy was just used to being the misfit, the one whose soulmark made her a confusing pariah in elementary school. Her soulmark totaled out to more than everyone else’s in her classroom combined, even the teacher’s. Shaking her head to herself, Darcy made her way out into the living room, finding Jane sitting on the sofa with her laptop open.

“Anything?”

“No.”

Ever since Puente Antiguo, Jane had been looking for any sign that the Einstein-Rosen Bridge that was the Bifrost was returning. That Thor was returning. And ever since Puente Antiguo, Darcy was downright terrified that Jane — or worse, Erik — would notice that her soulmark was also in runes, that it spelled the name of the man who’d almost killed them.

Then New York had happened.

Pictures were relatively hard to find, but  they existed. Images of a tall, thin man in an emerald cape, with a golden, horned helm. The horns themselves reminded her of a wild goat, though smoother, slimmer, and just a bit more foreward . There weren’t any good up-close pictures — at least, not of the ones that had been publically released. Eventually, Darcy’s curiosity had gotten to a boiling point, and she’d made a pleading call to pull in an old favor of Erik’s. Dr. Banner had been reluctant to send her any pictures, but one eventually found its way into her email. Along with a short surveillance video from the Stark Tower penthouse.

He was attractive, even looking almost sick. Sharp cheekbones, dark hair, a confident strut, piercing eyes...he was every fucking fantasy Darcy had ever had, wrapped up in black and green. Even with the hint of  _fucking crazy_ that she couldn’t ignore, the fire in his eyes. Even as she watched the clip, where he grabbed  _Tony fucking Stark_ by the throat and flung him out of the window. If anything, the clip made things worse.  Darcy couldn’t stop herself imagining those long, slim fingers wrapped around her throat...her hip...her thigh...even when she wasn’t looking at it anymore.

Of course she had to be soulmates with the villain in  the story. Of course her soulmate would be a murderer.

Bad boys turned her on.

* * *

Three more days later, and Jane’s equipment started doing weird shit while Jane was out of the house. Darcy had woken up to the sound of the beeping, with Jane nowhere to be seen and a note on the fridge saying she was out for lunch today, with an address. At first, she tried to make sense of it herself — she’d been around the equipment long enough that she could recognize some of the readings, but this was....

This was new. It was similar to Puente Antiguo, but there was something new about it. Something Darcy couldn’t pinpoint. So she grabbed the device that was making the most noise, got in the car, and drove.

She really hated driving in London. Everything was backwards to her and it was frustrating beyond belief. But, eventually she found the restaurant, and there was Jane — with a guy. Darcy grinned and approached. The guy thought she, in her jacket, sweater, and fuscia beanie, was a waitress, until she pulled over a chair and sat down. Then she handed the device off to Jane. It went without saying that Jane shot up and out of the restaurant. Darcy had to jog to follow her.

When they found the place that was causing the equipment to go crazy...it was weird.  The only people there were  _kids_ . There weren’t any adults, and the kids were nervous about sharing what they had. What they’d found. Like they’d been caught with their hands in the cookie jar. When Jane and Darcy saw what they had, it was understandable.

Spatial anomalies like this would be enough to bring SHIELD down on all of them, no matter the fact that SHIELD was an American organization. This was a greater problem, dealing with global security. There was no fucking way SHIELD would let anyone else handle it.

Of course, Jane just had to wander off on her own. Jane just had to find her way into one of these anomalous portals and disappear for five fucking hours. At first, Darcy wasn’t worried. It wasn’t until two hours had passed that she even realized Jane had been gone too long. She rallied the kids to help her look, but after another two hours spent searching, she gave up.

She called the police, because who else could help find someone who’d gone missing from a spatially anomalous site? She hoped Jane hadn’t fallen into an anomaly.

Another hour of waiting, of talking to officers, of assuring them that the kids weren’t there because she asked them, and Jane _finally_ showed up! Five hours later, with a thunderstorm rolling in.

The storm should’ve been the first clue that Thor was on his way.

“Tell me you didn’t call the police?” Jane burst out. Of course the first thought Jane had would be science. That’s what Darcy loved about her only real friend.

“What was I supposed to do?”

“Not call the police?”

“I was freaking out!”

“You call the cops, they call the Feds. Next thing you know, we have SHIELD crawling all over, Area 51-ing the place.”

“Jane —”

“We had a stable gravitational anomaly! We had unimpeded access! Our only competition was _ten years old_!”

“Jane! You were gone for _five hours_!”

The look on Jane’s face was pure shock. “What?”

And then they noticed the rain. How it wasn’t touching them — how it wasn’t touching Jane. It was strange, but it made sense after a moment. Once Jane spotted Thor and started moving towards him, though, Darcy was left to get drenched. It took a moment to follow after her, moving quickly.

Darcy did _not_ expect Jane to outright slap Thor across the face.

She gave them space — not entirely _willingly_ , but when a police officer approaches you and starts talking about trespassing charges, you listen. It wasn’t until Thor and Jane were inches from each other’s faces that Darcy finally got over to them.

“Hey!” She announced her presence, putting her jacket over her head and jogging up. “Is this you?”

Thor glanced at her, and looked skyward. A split second later, the rain stopped, like turning off the shower. Darcy lowered her jacket, finally, resting it on her shoulders.

“Uh, we’re kinda in the middle of something here.”

“Um...I’m pretty sure that we are getting arrested.”

Jane’s determined face slid into place. “Hold that thought,” she told Thor, before jogging over to the nearest police officer. Darcy lingered with Thor.

“Look at you! Still all muscle-y and everything,” she joked, jabbing a finger into his armor. “How’s space?”

Darcy hadn’t seen that smile in person since the diner in Puente Antiguo, when she took his picture over a stack of pancakes. Granted, he’d had a mouthful of pancake, but still. “Space is fine.”

Neither of them expected the literal explosion of red that happened when the officer tried to grab Jane by the arm. Both took off running.

“What the _hell_ was that?” Darcy shouted, trying to help Jane up to her feet along with Thor. It was Thor who got her onto her feet, of course, but Darcy had to try.

“I don’t know. Hold onto me,” Thor told Jane.

Darcy backed away at first, but her thoughts turned to her soulmark.

Thor was taking Jane to Asgard.

Loki was in Asgard, probably the prison.

Just before the Bifrost touched down over them, Darcy dove towards them. Instinct, recklessness, something that wasn’t rational thought took over, and she jumped.

It would’ve been beautiful, seeing the cosmos at lightning speed, if Darcy wasn’t clinging to Thor’s cape like a five-year-old with their security blanket. She hadn’t been able to grab anything else, but she had to hold onto something and grabbing Thor’s ass would’ve made Jane very unhappy.

Unfortunately, the fact that she was holding Thor’s cape meant that she collided with the floor of the Bifrost’s observatory, rolling to a stop at the foot of some raised pedestal thing.

“We have to do that again,” Jane laughed, spinning around to take in the room.

“Clearly, you’re a little delirious from the ride,” Darcy responded, forcing herself upright.

“Hi.”

That drew Darcy’s eyes up to the dais.

“Welcome to Asgard.”

Oh, boy.


	3. Without the darkness there'd be no light in me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy meets Frigga. Frigga does Darcy a favor.

Asgard was golden, surrounded by water, and the Bifrost sounded like walking on bells. Darcy couldn’t help but skip for the first several feet, laughing to herself over the light sound. Musical, gentle, happy. She was well aware that Thor and Jane were staring at her like she was acting childish. Maybe she was, but it was obvious she didn’t care. She was enjoying herself, and that was what mattered.

“Darcy,” Thor chuckled, “you may want to watch your step. I doubt you’d enjoy the waters.”

Darcy stopped, turning to face Thor with her hands on her hips. “I’m an adult and if I want to skip on a chiming bridge, I will,” she replied. “You’re not wrong, though. I don’t want to get even _more_ drenched.”

Instinctively, she tugged her sleeve, making sure it was in place. Heimdall hadn’t even blinked at her presence, but she knew someone would question. Someone would want to know why she’d jumped into the Bifrost’s path. Someone would question why Jane’s assistant was here.

It made sense for Jane to be here, sure. Technically. Something that was clearly not from Earth was affecting her, causing violent explosions when someone touched her with anything other than friendship or worry in mind. They needed to figure out what it was and how to get it out of her, because it didn’t seem like it was helping her much.

Well. Aside from keeping them from getting arrested.

The walk from the observatory to the palace, however, was going to take a while. Darcy wasn’t looking forward to the welcome that certainly awaited them. It wasn’t likely to be any sort of actual _welcome_ , but she had to keep her hopes in the midrange that not everyone would be upset by their appearance.

She had to hope that the fact that Thor had brought Midgardians to Asgard wasn't going to spread too quickly.

By the time they got halfway across the bridge, Darcy was regretting not bringing coffee, or something in general to drink. But she stuck it out. Kept walking. She knew at least one thing that was likely to be at the end of this walk.

“Hey, Thor?”

“Yes, Darcy?”

“Where’s the prison here?”

She couldn’t help the hint of hope that filled her voice. When it came to soulmates, there was always an irrational hope. Especially when you found out that your soulmate was a murderous lunatic.

“Over that way,” Thor pointed with his hammer. “The security is quite impressive. We have not had anyone break free as far back as I can recall.”

“Oh, well, that’s good...and that’s where Loki is?”

“Of course.” Thor didn’t sound very pleased. “Odin was rather strict on that.”

That made a lot of sense. Loki had tried to take over Earth, he belonged in a prison. That didn’t make Darcy’s situation any easier. She wasn’t getting any younger. Then again, she didn’t know what was written on Loki’s soulmark, or even if he had one which bore her name. She couldn’t decide which was a worse fate. Finding out that her soulmark was a fluke, or finding out she was one of those sob stories that Lifetime loved to pity.

If she was one of the Unrequited, she could handle that.

“You’re being unusually quiet,” Jane commented.

“I’m just thinking,” she replied, “taking in the sights.” She could almost hear Jane’s brain whirring over the fact that her usually sarcastic and talkative intern was being quiet. Jane was lucky, though. She wore her soulmark like armor, like a badge of honor, even before she met Thor. She let it bolster herself. Darcy had never felt so emboldened. She acted like she didn’t even have a soulmark half the time. That was how she’d gotten through college, after all. Even her roommate had never noticed the runes and numbers on her arm.

Finally, the trio reached their destination — the palace of Asgard, and not far within, what could only be described as a weird, magic clinic. One of the women laid Jane out on a weird-looking table, which started projecting orange glowy sparkles. Darcy didn’t stick around long.

She wasn’t actually here for Jane.

So Darcy wandered off, following a hallway and admiring the architecture. It was interesting, both modern and ancient at once, capturing both smooth curves and sharp angles.

“Wandering off?”

“Holy shit, don’t scare me like that!” Darcy jumped visibly, arms flailing, at the sound of a woman speaking. An older woman stood at the other side of the hall, her straw-golden hair pulled up in an elaborate style to keep it out of her kind, smiling face. Her sweeping silver and blue ensemble could only be described as a gown, all flowing lines with delicate, almost floral trim.

Her smile grew wider. “You are quite the young woman, if you are willing to speak so bluntly to the queen of Asgard.” There was no reprimand in her voice, just warmth, but Darcy couldn’t help becoming still as stone. Queen of Asgard.

This was Thor and Loki’s _mother_.

If anyone could get her into the prisons to at least meet Loki, it was her. From all accounts, Odin wasn’t exactly the most welcoming person. She’d have a better chance here, if she could just talk.

“I, uh, was...looking for the bathroom,” she lied. It wasn’t the strongest lie she could come up with, but when you’re face to face with a _goddess_ , who also happens to be your soulmate’s _mother_ , a few flubs are to be anticipated.

“Were you really?” the queen laughed. “Well, it would be impolite of me to permit my son’s guest to wander around unaided in such a moment of necessity. Come, let me show you.” She held out a hand at shoulder height, which Darcy nervously stepped up into.

It was like being led to the kitchen by a friend’s very nice mother, except she could probably order Darcy’s death at just about anytime when she realized Thor hadn’t actually _invited_ her.

“What’s your name?” Darcy asked, fidgeting with her sleeve. “The legends aren’t always exactly clear on that one.”

The queen laughed. “I am Frigga. And you are Darcy, are you not?”

 _Oh, shit, she knows my name_ , Darcy panicked, eyes wide. “Y-yes. Did Thor tell you about me?”

“Oh, don’t be nervous. He shared with me — and me alone — of how you bested him when he was delirious in the moments following his banishment. It surprises me how many young Midgardian women are so quick to wield a weapon in a moment of panic. Almost as much as it makes me proud.”

That was something, for sure. “So...you know about the whole...soulmark thing, with Jane?”

“I do.” Frigga turned down a narrow corridor, guiding Darcy at her side. “Thor is lucky that he found her when he did.”

“Lucky he was banished, you mean?”

“I suppose. It not only tempered him, but it led him to his soulmate.”

“So...if I told you my soulmark was the real reason I decided to jump into the Bifrost, would you believe that?”

Frigga stopped in her tracks. Darcy walked on another couple of steps before realizing that Frigga was no longer immediately behind her. “Let me see it.”

Darcy shifted to remove her jacket. She got the feeling that you didn’t just say no to a queen, even if it meant letting go of the last piece of armor you were holding onto. Once the jacket was over her arm, she started tugging up the sleeve of her sweater, turning the black marks towards Frigga. The queen took in a sharp breath, gingerly taking hold of Darcy’s wrist with one hand as the other traced the skin beneath her son’s name.

“Oh, Loki,” she breathed. “Fate _has_ given you a chance.” Shaking herself ever so slightly, she smiled once more at Darcy. “If you still need to use the restroom, I will wait here, and when you’ve finished, I will have you taken to see him.”

Darcy nodded. “Thank you...will Odin be upset?”

“More than likely,” Frigga grinned, “but as queen, I do have _some_ authority over the guards.”

“Thank you again. I’ll be right back.” And she ducked into the door off the side of the corridor.

* * *

Asgard may have been beautiful, but the prisons were not. Despite the golden floors of the paths between the rather spacious cells, the leering faces of unfamiliar species stared at Darcy as she walked, flanked by two of Frigga’s personal guards. Many of them called out things in languages Darcy couldn’t understand, but she was far too used to catcalling not to pick up on their vague meaning.

Even in a thick sweater and a warm winter coat, there were always men who would stare at her assets like she was a piece of beef in a butcher’s display. There were always men who called out to her, making lewd suggestions and worse. She’d gotten used to it, even offering her own rude comebacks quite often. But this was a prison, and Darcy didn’t want to be the cause of a riot.

The guards led her to a far more...comfortable-looking cell, with furnishings and books. And a very tall, thin, pale individual, standing with his hands folded behind his back, watching her avidly.

“Ah. I recognize you. You were in the desert, with Thor and his mortal,” he drawled. Oh, fuck, Darcy had _not_ been prepared for his voice. She’d only heard his voice once, in the Stark Tower penthouse surveillance clip Dr. Banner had sent, and that had been quiet. She couldn’t hear exactly what he was saying, but he’d _definitely_ been laying out one hell of a threat against Mr. Stark.

“Yeah, well, that’s not why I’m here,” she sassed back, starting to remove her jacket. Easily, she handed it off to one of the guards flanking her, even though she didn’t glance back. Then she rolled back her left sweater sleeve and held her arm at her side. “This is why I’m here. Thanks to your mother.”

“She’s —” Darcy could only imagine the comeback he’d been about to spit — _“She’s not my mother!”_ — before his eyes found her arm and went wide. “No. That cannot be possible.”

“Oh, but it is, Mr. Tried-To-Take-Over-My-Planet. I came all the way to Asgard, of all the fucking places, just to meet you. Just to say I met my soulmate face-to-face and he’s just as much of a pompous asshole as I would have anticipated!”

“You should not speak to me that way, girl,” he spat, raising a hand as if about to slam it into the wall and then thinking better of it. “Were these circumstances any different, I would have you beneath me already. Even with the audience.”

“Wow. You must really have a lot of pent up sexual frustration.”

Loki laughed. He actually _laughed_. And it was kind of sexy. “You have no idea. So, you must be Darcy. Twenty-six year old Darcy, with the name of a man who’s lived over forty-one times as long as you have written upon your skin.”

“Yeah, and it caused me a lot of ridicule when I was a kid. Wasn’t until I was Isix that I even realized it wasn’t an entirely normal language. Eventually I looked it up, but I didn’t know what the fuck was going on. I didn’t think _any_ gods were real, I mean, we just celebrated what our neighbors did because my mom was dying to fit in!”

“I do apologize for being a source of ridicule, but I hope you don’t expect much from this.” Loki vaguely gestured at the glistening wall between them.

“Actually, _I_ am the one who expects anything from this meeting.” An apparition of Frigga appeared in the corner of Loki’s cell. By the guards’ lack of reaction, Darcy guessed that she was projecting this in a fashion that only she and Loki could see or hear. “So if you wouldn’t mind it, Darcy, please ask the guards to complete their queen’s orders. I’ll see to it a few outfits and a changing screen are sent along.”

Loki almost looked pained by the fact that his _mother_ was doing this.

“Well, I guess we’ll find out.” With a deep breath, Darcy turned to face the guard holding her jacket. Taking it back, she added, “Would you gentlemen be so kind as to complete your orders from the queen?”

The guards shared a look that very clearly said, _We’re probably gonna get demoted for this,_ before they nodded, and one of them stepped up, placing a hand on the corner pillar. The glowing golden barrier dimmed, and he gestured for Darcy to step inside.

According to the legends, the queen of Asgard was a seer. She would never have allowed Darcy to be in a closed space that neither of them could leave without the absolute assurance that nothing would happen to either of them. Darcy couldn’t be sure.

Still, she stepped through the gap. The thinned magic of the wall tingled over her skin as she crossed from the dark gold corridor into the brightly lit cell.

“So. You have come to face the monster that has been named your soulmate.”

“Yep! And we’re gonna have a talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, just as a thing on this chapter. I've worked out how some later things are gonna work out. Certain things that require certain involvement. Namely, things to do with Erik. And I think it's gonna be hilarious.


	4. Nothing good will come of this

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy didn't really think this through.

“Did you have a plan?”

“A little bit of one.” Darcy’s grin was the only warning Loki had, as she stalked right up to him and left-handed slapped him right across the face. “That, is for New York.” Then, before he even had a chance to turn back to her, she brought up her right hand, fingers balled into a fist, and socked him in the jaw. “And _that_ is for New Mexico!”

She moved to start backing away, but before she could, those long fingers she’d been secretly fantasizing about wrapped around her right arm, pulling her in closer. Shockingly, he was smiling. “I like a challenge,” he practically purred, his green eyes flashing with mischief. “Did your plan involve anything after punching me in the face?”

It took Darcy a moment to find her voice, staring into his eyes. She wasn’t a tall woman by any means, but he was...fantastically tall. She hadn’t expected him to be this tall. “I didn’t get that far,” she breathed. “God, your eyes are stunning.”

He looked momentarily confused, but he didn’t release her. Not as he began to smile. “Am I to assume that your only retribution for the destruction and lives lost in my...attempts is to simply assault me twice and let it lie?”

Darcy laughed. “I’m not that much of a forward thinking individual and I’ve been kind of dreaming about your hands all over me for a few months. It might be this whole soulmate thing, but I thought that didn’t start until we were _actually_ face to face.”

“You knew who I was,” he sighed, releasing her arm and turning away. “That makes all the difference. I didn’t know who you were when I saw you in the desert — New Mexico, you called it? I saw you, but I didn’t, couldn’t realize.” Loki, with his confident stride, walked around to the side of his rather sizable bed, sitting on the edge of it. “I didn’t pay much attention, but there was a _something_ that seemed to draw my eye to you, in your little hat.”

Darcy laughed, glancing around before taking the chair nearest the corridor she’d come in from. As she sat, she tossed her jacket down on the footrest, before digging into its pockets. Quickly, she tugged out her cell phone, her new iPod (a gift from Jane after New Mexico), and her headphones. She hadn’t been able to bring her trusty Taser with her to London. Unfortunately, she didn’t even know where it’d ended up. The last time she’d seen it had been over a year ago. She doubted it’d be useful against Loki — she’d only been able to catch Thor off guard with it because he’d just been _banished_ from Asgard and stripped of his power.

“That won’t work here,” Loki called over, as she lifted her cell phone and turned the screen on.

“I’m not planning to call anyone, just checking the battery. I’m not sure how long I’m gonna be staying in here with you, so I’m making sure I have some things to keep me occupied.” She grinned. “Unless you had other plans.”

“I had a few ideas, some more appealing than others. Several of them would end with Frigga being quite displeased, a few of those would result in a rather _interesting_ show for the neighbors.” Loki nodded towards the cell across from them, the occupants of which stood at their barrier, staring at Darcy. “Not that I would let them see it. I am known for my illusions.”

“You can still do that in here?”

“Indeed, though it is confined within the barriers. I cannot create an illusion of myself in the corridor, for example — but I _can_ create an illusion which will hide what is truly happening in here from those beyond. It’s simple. Child’s play, even, for me.”

Darcy was impressed. She tried not to show it, but the smile that crept up couldn’t be restrained fully. “How long did it take you to get that good at it?” she asked.

Loki shrugged. “Maybe a thousand years? Magic isn’t _easy_ , Darcy.”

She sighed some. “Amarissa.”

“What?”

“My full name is Amarissa Darceline Lewis,” she confessed, looking to him. “It’s a very pretentious name that makes me sound prissy, so I started using my dad’s nickname for me as a name. Darcy sounds _much_ more confident and sassy than Amarissa, or even Amy. I would greatly appreciate if you continued to call me Darcy, but I thought you should at least know. Soulmates aren’t supposed to keep secrets from each other.”

Loki’s expression turned contemplative. Darcy took the shift to mean _conversation over_ , and opened her phone’s Music app, scrolling through the songs present before selecting an option and turning up the volume.

_You, you’re everything I want_  
_And I, I’m everything you need_  
_This night is cutting into me_  
_You tie me down, you watch me bleed_  
_And we risk everything tonight_

“What _is_ that?”

“Just one of my favorite bands,” Darcy shrugged. “They haven’t released a new album since last year, though.” Politely, she turned the volume down and set the phone aside, letting the music play with the screen dark. “Their music feels fitting. A lot of it is about a darker side of love, which, if that doesn’t describe what we would have ahead of us in slightly different circumstances, I don’t know _what_ would.”

Loki inclined his head some, before standing up and walking over. “You do have those,” he gestured to the thin wires of her earbuds.

“Felt like sharing.” Darcy shrugged, leaning back in the chair. “So. What sort of stuff do you do around here for fun? You know, to keep your mind off the fact that you can’t leave this little room?”

“I read.” Loki’s hand went towards the corner where his stacks of books resided. “I think your clothing delivery has arrived.”

Darcy shot up from the chair, turning to face the forward wall of the cell. There stood three guards, two holding stacks of folded clothes and one carrying what could only be Frigga’s promised changing screen. “Hi,” she squeaked, walking towards them. “Uh...how..?”

The first guard just held the garment stack halfway through the barrier, just far enough for Darcy to get her arms under, which she did, turning to set them on top of her jacket, and by extension, her phone. “Uh. Loki? Can you help me with the screen once it’s in?”

“I suppose, if I am to be stuck with you, the least I can do is _attempt_ to be hospitable,” he drawled, taking a few short steps towards her side, as she turned back to take the other stack of clothes. The guard with the changing screen, however, seemed hesitant, even as he started to lean it through the barrier. Loki gripped the top with those long, thin fingers of his — she wouldn’t be surprised if he could play some sort of instrument — and started to tug it in. “I would say that the most question is, where to set this up?”

Darcy set the second stack of clothes on the seat of the chair, before turning to look over the cell. The bed was up against one part of the back, solid wall, and the stacks of books took most of the other side. “The only solution I can think of is to move the books forward and put the screen up _behind_ them. Unless you feel like moving the bed.”

_Don’t think about the fact that he’s holding that up with one hand, just don’t, that’s the worst idea,_ _**and** _ _I’m already lost to that thought, fuck, he could probably hold me up one handed._ Darcy bit down on her lower lip, turning away to look over the clothes.

There were eight dresses in all, with a small wooden box in the middle of the first stack and a small container that looked like a combination between a bottle and a jar in the middle of the second.

“You could _help_ with the books, you know,” Loki noted. Darcy spun.

“Sorry! I was just...”

There was more she was going to say, but as she turned, she realized that Loki had leaned the folded screen up against the back wall and was crouched down, moving stacks of books inch by inch. His movements were careful, meticulous, almost _elegant_ in such a simple task. Darcy took in a deep breath and crossed the cell, sitting adjacent to him and sliding stacks carefully towards herself. The collection was quite varied. A compendium of stories by Edgar Allan Poe, a collection of Shakespeare’s poetry, even a book of collected tales by H.P. Lovecraft. “You read all of this?”

“I’ve read all of them already,” he replied, straightening once more to shift the screen further into place. “It’s the only thing that I can really occupy my time with down here.” It was clear that he was goind stir-crazy in this cell, without people to talk to. Darcy resolved to fix that.

It quickly became obvious that the promised changing screen was more than just a screen, revealing three walls and a small arm that could be pressed into the wall, with a black curtain. It took more space than either of them anticipated, which led to enough frustration on Loki’s part to move the books with magic. Once the books were pressed into place against the wall of the changing room, Darcy stood and walked into the space.

“I’ll say one thing. Your mom doesn’t do things halfway.” Clearly, the so-called screen had magical properties of some sort. There was a cushy chair in one corner, a shelf, a small sink with a mirror, and even a small standing shower that Darcy didn’t even want to know more about — it was there. Propped up on the shelf was a hand-written note. Without really thinking, Darcy picked it up and read it over.

_Darcy,_

_I know this is more than you anticipated. However, considering that you are Loki’s soulmate, I consider you effectively my daughter-in-law — the same consideration I have afforded Jane. In my eyes as a seer, I view soulmark as a far more irrevocable bond than any marriage vow that could be made._

_Trust him, Darcy. Show him the consideration that Thor and Odin never did. Treat him as no less or more than your equal — for that is part of the soulmark’s bond. It matters not that you are a mortal woman, and he is not precisely so mortal._

_Should you need someone else to talk to at any moment, do not hesitate to knock twice upon the center of the mirror. As soon as I am able, I will find myself some privacy to speak with you, on any subject._

_Frigga_

_P.S. The jar contains a gentle lavender, chamomile, and bergamot soap. It’s fantastic for both skin and hair. When you need more, let me know._

Darcy sighed quietly and contentedly as she folded the letter up and wedged it behind the cushion of the armchair. “This is probably the biggest gift anyone’s given me.”

“She is quite the giver,” Loki laughed. “You should move the clothes in there — perhaps even put one of the gowns on. It should be far easier to settle in once you’re out of those jeans.”

Laughing quietly, Darcy leaned out of the curtain, shoulder against the wall. “Will you help me put it on if I need it?”

Loki shifted to stand before her with a far less fun, far more predatory gaze than he had just moments before. Like he was appraising her, head to toe, though his eyes never left hers. “I can’t be certain if that was an invitation or a dismissal,” he mused, taking the half step he needed to close the distance between them.

Taking a sharp breath, Darcy took half a step to the side, further out of the changing room and just a hair closer to him. Her pulse picked up sharply just from his proximity. She could smell his soap — there was a definite scent of sage, with a hint of peppermint. It was natural, she reasoned, for her to react to her soulmate’s presence, his closeness. She looked up, blue eyes meeting green, and smiled. “Why don’t you make that decision,” she breathed, “since you’re the god of lies.”

_Screw being equals,_ she thought. _At least for now._

Loki lifted his hand to her neck, his thumb resting just under her chin. “Are you sure you want me to make that decision?” Darcy closed her eyes, sighing into the feeling of his fingers. Just as strong as she’d anticipated. She should’ve been afraid — she didn’t doubt that he could kill her without much effort. “Darcy?”

“Yes,” she breathed, opening her eyes to look straight into his. “You lead.”

He leaned in, pausing with his lips mere inches from hers. She could feel his breath, could almost taste it. Hesitantly, she lifted her own hands, right stopping against his chest, taking in the feel of the cool black leather, as her left found the nape of his neck. His hand moved, sliding back to twist his fingers into her hair, his thumb caressing her ear. The only thing she could really hear at this point was the rushing of blood in her ears.

So she closed her eyes and jumped, pressing her lips up into his, her body closer against him, as his other hand slid into place at her waist.

Darcy had never imagined kissing could be such a spiritual experience, even as he nipped her lower lip, pulled it between his own, letting go to flick his tongue between hers. She was almost dizzy just from that.

All too soon, he pulled away, resting his forehead against hers. “You’ll be my destruction,” he rasped, nuzzling his nose to her cheekbone. “You shouldn’t stay.”

“That’s my decision,” she murmured, shifting just enough to kiss the corner of his lips. “And I’m not leaving anytime soon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lyrics within the chapter, and the chapter's title, are taken from the song Scarlet by In This Moment.


	5. I'm dangerous for you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy and Frigga have a heart-to-heart; Loki displays his prowess of illusion.

A kiss changed so much, and yet it changed nothing. The moment Loki stepped away, he turned from her, swiping up one of the books from the nearest stack and walking to sit beside the barrier. Darcy sighed. “Way to leave a girl hanging,” she muttered, stalking over to the chair and footstool and lifting the stack from the chair. That stack went on the shelf near the chair, the little jar of soap removed and placed in the shower. The second stack, once moved, was placed beside the first, and the box it contained opened.

It was a very odd little thing contained within. Seemingly made of gold, with delicate scrolling along the four sides. Of course, there was a much shorter note tucked into the lid.

_I figured you ought to have something to protect yourself, if need be. It is nothing like the electrical device Thor has told me you used upon him, but its effect is similar enough. It will, if the small spikes are pressed into exposed skin, induce instantaneous unconsciousness. For the purpose of your own satisfaction, it will make a sort of buzzing sound as it is used._

_Frigga_

“Damn, you’re amazing. I wish you were _my_ mom,” Darcy laughed, setting the small box between the clothing and the shower.

“Thank you, dear.”

“Fucking hell!” Darcy exclaimed, spinning to be face-to-face with the queen herself. “Jeez, could you just...not do that where I’m not looking, please? I don’t wanna accidentally break something in here!”

Frigga laughed. “I apologize, Darcy. I wanted to see how you’ve settled in.”

“Fine, so far.” Darcy’s voice shook ever so slightly. She didn’t want to admit that she was already losing her damn mind, just from Loki’s proximity. “Thanks, by the way. For the... _this_.” She gestured vaguely to her present surroundings. “It’s like my own private haven.”

“Indeed it is, as I’ve placed enough of a silencing spell to keep anything you say within this space from escaping unless you wish it to.” Frigga’s smile was just smug enough, as she stepped (silently, of course, this illusion shit was gonna be the cause of Darcy’s death) over to the shower. “This operates entirely from magic, using a pair of transporting spells to both bring the water to you and to draw it away, as well as a heating spell tied to the dial.”

“You are fantastic, I love you.”

“I only wish that the circumstances were different,” Frigga sighed. “That you did not need to stay within the prisons to be with your soulmate.”

Darcy shrugged, turning to the dresses and lifting the top two from the first stack she’d brought in, lifting up the third gown. It was a delicate, soft ivory fabric, with fine crystals and silver embroidery, and, it seemed, a flowing, attached cloak. “Holy fuck, I do not deserve this glorious piece of fashion,” Darcy fawned, holding it up to herself and walking over to the mirror. “I can’t even believe you gave me this.”

“If I know my son, seeing you in Asgardian clothing will show him, even more deeply, your sheer beauty. Loki has always been the more...fashion conscious of my sons.”

“This is insanely gorgeous,” Darcy laughed. “I can’t even begin to thank you for this. It’s more than I could _ever_ have expected.”

“You are my son’s soulmate,” Frigga explained, letting a hand hover over Darcy’s shoulder as she stood behind her. “I could not simply give you the plain clothing of a commoner. In effect, you are a princess of Asgard, and you will be clothed as one.”

“Okay, you seriously need to give my mom lessons in how to be a mother. She’s never been this generous.”

“To be truthful, I cannot fully fault her that. In her eyes, the number upon your soulmark must have been a death sentence. We of Asgard have been disconnected from Midgard for far too long.”

Darcy’s smile turned sad for a moment, before she exhaled sharply. “Anyway. I guess you can’t physically  _help_ me into this dress, but you can help me by telling me what I need to do, right?”

* * *

Maybe an hour later, Darcy was tying off the finishing touch of the look — a smooth braid, done in a sort of French style from her left temple to just behind her right ear. The braid had taken the most time of the entire look, requiring two attempts just to get it to look right.

“There,” Frigga said, taking a circle around behind Darcy to look over the final look. “You look almost perfectly like a princess of Asgard.”

“I’m just missing a tiara and, you know, the actual freedom that goes with it,” Darcy laughed, turning to face the illusory queen. “Thank you again, for everything. This wouldn’t be possible at all without you.”

“Please, it is the absolute _least_ I could do. If I’d thought Odin would be agreeable, I would have made an appeal to him that, by the simple existence of a soulmate, Loki could be redeemed.”

“You believe he still can?”

“I know it, Darcy. You can begin to heal what Odin and I have wrought upon his soul. Get him to open up to you, darling.” Frigga stepped closer, lifting her hands as if to cup Darcy’s face. “If anyone can help him heal, it is you. That’s what a soulmate is for.”

Darcy sighed, shifting the cape about herself. “I hope so. You must have other things you need to do. I can’t take any more of your time.”

“Never worry about that. Your only focus should be here.” Frigga’s hands lowered, her left lingering to hover over Darcy’s heart. “But, you’re not wrong. We will speak again soon.”

With that, the queen was gone in a shimmer of green and gold light. Darcy turned back to the mirror. She didn’t look like  _Darcy_ anymore. She looked like Amarissa — the perfect, beautiful daughter her mother had wanted, the princess her grandmother had always hoped the little girl who shared her name would grow up into. “Well, Nana Ama,” Darrcy sighed, “looks like you got your wish after all. I just wish you could see me.” Taking a deep breath in through her nose and exhaling slowly, Darcy turned away from the mirror and walked out into her soulmate’s cell.

She thought Loki would be completely engrossed in his book. No, instead, he was standing over the footrest, where her phone was  _still_ playing music.

_Sometimes_  
_It's hard to hold on_  
_So hard to hold on to my dreams_  
_It isn't always what it seems_  
_When you're face to face with me_

“Damn it, I should’ve turned that off!” Darcy blurted, lifting the front of her skirt enough to reveal her bare feet, with their silver toes, and running over to the corner. She picked up the phone, lit up the screen, and proceeded to turn the phone entirely off. “I can’t waste the battery, it’s not like I can charge it here.”

“You look stunning.”

Darcy lifted her eyes from the phone to find Loki staring at her, a sort of fire in those green eyes of his. “Uh...thanks,” she replied, before dropping the phone back on top of her coat. “Your mom is incredible. And really nice.”

“Yes, she is,” Loki sighed, offering Darcy a hand even as a ripple of magic flowed over him, and his...what Darcy assumed was casual Asgardian attire, became the familiar armor that she had seen in those blurry photographs a few lucky reporters had snapped in their rush to escape the Chitauri. It wasn’t too extremely different from Thor’s, which Darcy had previously gotten several good looks at — the cape had that rising curve from the shoulders, though more subtle, and was comprised more of black leather than of its golden metal. Thankfully, he skipped the helmet.

“Any particular reason for the change?” Darcy inquired, grinning as she accepted his offered hand. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“Your gown is more formal attire than casual,” he explained. “I thought it best to match.”

“So you can do _anything_ with your magic, right? As long as it’s an illusion?”

Loki met Darcy’s all-too-excited gaze and sighed. “What is it you would like me to do?”

“I was wondering — since we can’t leave the room — could you make it look like we’re at a party? Here in Asgard?” She squeezed his hand tightly, taking a half step closer to him. “Make it feel like we’re not stuck in here, if only for a little while?”

As she gazed up at him, with her broad smile and pleading eyes, Loki’s own expression softened into a smile. A genuine sort of smile. “I hoped that you might ask. Just don’t touch anything you see. Touch shatters the illusion.” And Loki raised his free hand, waving it through the air beside them.

In an instant, the prison cell transformed entirely into a gilded ballroom, the sound of jeering prisoners turned to a gentle, lilting melody somewhat like a waltz. Without a pause, Loki led her to the center of the shining floor and swept her close to him, resting his left hand just above her hip. It was all too easy for Darcy to reciprocate with a familiar movement, her right hand taking its place upon Loki’s shoulder.

“You even move like a princess in this gown,” he whispered, tugging her to press against his lean frame. “If only Fate were not so cruel to you, that we would meet so late.”

“It’s never too late to be redeemed, Loki,” she replied as he began to lead her through an elegant dance, the music shifting just enough to follow their motions. The illusory party guests turned to watch them dance — Frigga was among them, Darcy realized, a proud smile lighting up her face as she was swept past, so perfect that she couldn’t tell if Loki had placed her there or if Frigga had stepped into her son’s illusion, to watch them bond. “If I’ve learned anything over the course of my life, it’s that you only need to seek redemption to find it.”

“Perhaps I am simply not capable of it. There’s a reason the Frost Giants earned their reputation as monsters.”

Darcy was momentarily confused. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing,” Loki responded, too quickly.

“Loki. The one thing I can be certain of with you is that you never say anything that doesn’t have some sort of meaning, whether it is said to draw away from the truth or towards it.”

His replying smirk was electric. “What do  _you_ think it means, Darcy?”

That...was not what Darcy had expected. She had anticipated maybe that he would disagree, or redirect the conversation. “You called yourself a monster when I came into the cell,” she said, licking over her lips as she thought through the puzzle presented to her, Loki never once ceasing his dance. “And the Frost Giants, you say, are called monsters.”

“And what conclusion do you draw from that?”

Darcy’s conclusion didn’t make sense. “That you’re a Frost Giant — but that can’t be right. You’re Thor’s brother, he’s —”

“It is,” he confessed, his fingers lacing between hers. “That fact was kept from me my entire life, by those who would call themselves my _family_. My _father_ sought to use me as a pawn in a greater game. He saw me as a way to place Jotunheim under his thumb.”

“Oh, Loki,” Darcy sighed. “I suppose you found out around the time Thor got himself banished?”

“An astute observation,” he admitted. “Just after, in fact — though just before, I had discovered enough to make an educated guess.” He smiled again. “Fortunately, the discovery of my true nature revealed my soulmark. It had been...trapped, I suppose, by my subconsciousness, which prevented me from learning it existed.”

“You believed you were Unmarked, on top of being an Asgardian prince.” Darcy took in a deep breath, leaning her head to his shoulder. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

“We both grew up with more than our share of mockery.” His hand shifted from the side of her waist to her back, holding her close. “But we came out of it stronger, armed with sharp tongues and sharper minds.”

“You haven’t said one witty comeback to me since I walked in,” she mused, shifting her head to rest gently against his neck. “I’m almost disappointed.”

“Soulmates should trust one another. I can’t trust you with absolute certainty, but I _can_ show enough trust to offer you some measure of the truth.”

“That’ll be enough. For now.” She lifted her head finally, grinning. “But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t offer a little sarcasm now and then, keep these tongues of ours razor sharp.”

“You are truly a wonder,” he marveled, releasing her hand to cup her cheek, his thumb gentle across her cheekbone. “I don’t deserve you.”

“Clearly, Fate disagrees,” Darcy laughed, following his hand with her own. “You think I’m too good for you, but I see in your eyes...you deserve a fucking break from destruction. A safe haven to come to when the world presses in too sharply.”

Loki sighed, sliding his hand to her neck, palm against her pulse and thumb lingering on her jaw. “Language, Darcy,” he purred. And that was all the warning she got before his mouth was against hers again, stealing her breath and the comeback she was about to blurt out.

For a Frost Giant, he was incredibly warm. A soft sigh of contentment  escaped from Darcy as she slipped her hand from his shoulder to the nape of his neck, pulling him closer even as she caught a glimpse of the illusory ballroom he’d conjured for her flickering out of existence.  This time, it was her turn to show she could hold her own, nipping and pulling against his lower lip — and then his tongue was sliding between her lips, swirling around hers and coaxing her to do the same.

The world could have been on fire and neither of them would notice.

When they finally broke apart, both of them were short of breath. Loki recovered first. “Darcy,” he breathed, moving to kiss across her cheekbone to her ear. “Are you sure you want to do this? Because there’s no turning back.”

“If you think I’m backing down now, you really _are_ as crazy as everyone thinks you are,” she replied, tilting her head back to expose her throat. “Just don’t rip the dress.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Actual cliffhanger this time!
> 
> For some photographic reference, Darcy is wearing something like [this](https://66.media.tumblr.com/23aabba808837899ecf8d52f25a644a7/tumblr_pl1e4aZYwe1xztloeo1_1280.jpg) ([here's back of the dress](https://66.media.tumblr.com/583483f575aa05b1000d13187e444bc8/tumblr_pl1e4aZYwe1xztloeo2_1280.jpg)), with [this hairstyle](https://66.media.tumblr.com/6ed895268d11f18f2d69dc265cb38663/tumblr_pl1e4aZYwe1xztloeo3_640.jpg) in reverse (left to right instead of right to left). And she is barefoot.
> 
> Before I forget - chapter title is from The Promise by In This Moment; in-chapter lyrics are from Close My Eyes Forever by Lita Ford featuring Ozzy Osbourne. Highly recommend a listen to both, they're very on-mood for this fic.
> 
> I leave you with a very intense Loki


	6. You're beautiful and sick like me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy discovers that there are many more perks to being the soulmate of an Asgardian prince than just being considered a princess by his mother. Bit of a shorter chapter this time, though.

“I am not so barbaric that I would tear this beautiful gown,” Loki purred, lifting his hand from her waist to slide it down her arm. With a delicate golden glow, the gown seemed to melt off of Darcy’s body, which made her whine ever so quietly. “It’s not gone. Just moved.”

“Where is it, then?” she murmured, shifting her hands to rest them, fingers splayed, against his chest.

“The chair.”

A beat later, he made a vague gesture with his hand, and in a similar glowing fashion, his own clothing seemed to vanish, and Darcy’s hands were against his bare chest. He was toned — not skinny or soft, though his skin was smooth as fine satin. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but she hadn’t expected him to do this. “Next time, let me,” she whispered, “let me undress you. For now...”

She didn’t get the chance to finish her statement, as he dipped his head to her throat, kissing and nipping at her pulse. “Oh, fuck,” she moaned, dipping her head back farther. “Loki...”

“You are _perfect_ ,” he breathed, lifting his lips to the shell of her ear. “Let me never forget the way you look, the way you feel, even if I should remain in this cell a thousand years.”

For some, perhaps the reminder that their soulmate was effectively immortal in comparison to their own lifespan would be a mood killer, but Darcy wasn’t completely paying attention to his words. The feel of his lips against her ear, the silken tone of his voice, his breath on her heated skin, these were what she found herself focusing in on. “Please,” she begged, her left hand gliding over his soft skin, up to his neck, fingers twisting into long, dark hair.

With ease, Loki lifted her, carried her to his bed, and laid her upon it. “You are mine,” he growled as he lifted himself to hover over her. “You have always been, and will always be, _mine_.”

Darcy couldn’t think of a better fate, as she hungrily arched up and kissed him again, hand easily returning to the back of his neck, to his hair. This was more violent than before, all teeth and twisting tongues. She felt like she was flying, when they had done nothing more than this. Loki pulled back, tugging her lip with him a moment between his teeth.

“You’re mine, too,” she purred, even as he took her wrists and gathered them in one hand above her head, pinning her to the pillow.

“Hush, now,” he breathed, nipping at her chin. “We’ve just begun, my Darcy. Before this night is done, you will see the stars.” The hand that wasn’t around her wrists trailed, light as a cloud, down her body to her hip, where he traced a delicate swirling pattern that tormented her, burning white hot. Moments later, he rested his hand fully against her waist, gliding up gently to caress her breast. “You are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen, in all my years.”

A shiver chased through her body as her back arched into his touch, whimpering. “Loki,” she pleaded, “I need you.”

The hand with which he held her wrists lifted, and with a gesture, something soft and silken bound her hands to his headboard. “I take care of what is mine,” he growled, capturing her mouth once more with a dangerous possessiveness. His long fingers slid down, down, trailing feather-light over her skin until they slipped between her thighs, guiding them ever so slightly apart.

For a heartbeat, Darcy was frightened. Not of him — he might’ve been a murderer, but he seemed almost starved for affection in the way he commanded her body. No, she was frightened of the chance that others might see them. “Can they see us?” she asked in the space between kisses.

“I would kill any who tried.”

“Fuck, that’s hot,” she groaned, her head falling back to his pillow — his bed, it smelled like him, the bedding was so soft on her skin. Coming from him, those words should’ve been terrifying. He was capable of doing so without batting an eye, and Darcy knew it. Either she was an adrenaline junkie or she really loved his possessiveness. Her eyes found the emerald silk scarf that bound her wrists, something that _definitely_ wasn’t anywhere in the room moments ago. A fleeting thought to ask what more he could do with his magic danced across her mind, just as his fingertips parted her slit, caressing and teasing.

“Look at me, my Darcy.” With one hand still between her thighs, dancing across the soft, slick heat of her core, the other guided her chin, bringing her eyes to meet his. “Let me see you.” His eyes burned into hers as he circled his thumb over her clit, drawing a shivering moan from within her.

Those long fingers of his were like heaven, caressing over her sensitive skin, teasing with their deliberate strokes, while his eyes never left hers. His eyes were beautiful — clear, vibrant, and, currently, dark with desire. That lovely green was thin, but no less lovely. Darcy momentarily struggled against the silk that bound her wrists, whining, “Let me touch you.”

A breathless, dark laugh escaped him, a mischievous smirk curling his lips. “Oh, Darcy. You look so lovely when you beg.” Easily, he leaned in, breaking eye contact to nip at her earlobe. Then he whispered, “I think I’ll leave the scarf there...you did say I could take the lead, did you not?” He punctuated the question by slipping a single finger inside of her.

Darcy bit her lip and arched, moaning against his ear. “Oh, god, Loki...” He laughed again, drawing himself back and his fingers from her wet slit. His hand twisted as he momentarily observed the way the fingers glistened, before lifting them to his lips and licking them.

It was Loki’s turn to moan, his eyes fluttering closed. “You taste divine, my Darcy.” He shifted on the bed, one hand trailing down Darcy’s side as he settled himself between her legs. The first hint Darcy had of his intention was his lips pressing against the skin just beneath her naval. “I simply _must_ have more of you.”

Then his mouth was on her, tongue gliding against her folds, tasting her at the source. Darcy cried out, her hands adjusting to grip what of the headboard she could reach. He was _incredible_ , like he knew exactly what would please her, draw her closer to the edge. It was just as well that the legends had focused in on his skilled tongue — though this certainly was not their intended meaning.

“Loki, please,” she begged, arching her hips into his eager mouth. “Please...I need you. I need...I need...”

“What is it you need, my Darcy?” he teased, punctuating his reply with a flick of his tongue against her clit.

“I need you inside me.” Breathless, she stared down the line of her own form into his blazing eyes. “Please, please fuck me, Loki. _Please_.”

His responding laugh was quiet, a promise of sin if Darcy had ever heard one. “Oh, Darcy...I suppose, since you beg so _beautifully_ , I will give you what you desire.” His movements were sinful, almost feline, as he prowled his way up her body. He paused only when his face was at level with her breasts.

Darcy had always been proud of her breasts. Sure, the boys in middle school made fun of her, and she was consistently drawing undesired attention from strangers. But the way he touched them with those incredible fingers, with his _tongue_ , was more than she’d ever really anticipated. His touch was hungry, eager, teasing, and it had Darcy mewling as her back arched.

“Please...”

In an instant, his mouth was on hers again, his hips settling his cock just shy of her wet cunt. One hand wrapped around the back of her neck, the other pressed ever so gently against the left side of her rib cage, just beneath her breast. Over her heart, which was racing wildly. “So eager, my Darcy,” he purred, barely pulling away from her lips, “so beautiful and _greedy_ you are.” His left hand left her neck, tracing a curving line down her body to guide his cock into her.

And _oh_ , did Darcy melt, closing her eyes and arching into him. Loki met her halfway, his chest against hers, his cock still barely an inch within her. She wanted to touch him, but at the same moment was glad that her hands were bound.

She never wanted this moment to end, and if she could touch him, it would shatter like glass. It was best to leave the control in his incredibly capable, dexterous hands. He claimed her lips once more as he sank into her heat, drawing a moan from both of them, and shifted his left hand around beneath her, holding her to him. For several heartbeats, neither of them moved — then he began to build a dangerously slow rhythm, pulling himself up to hover over her. “Look at me, Darcy,” he purred, “into my eyes. Let me see you, all of you.”

“Oh, fuck,” she gasped, her eyes locking to his easily. He smiled that smile of sin, and steadily picked up the pace, drawing needy moans and gasps from her.

“Say my name again,” he breathed, as one hand slid between them again, thumb pressing and circling her clit.

Her reply was a scream of pure bliss as his touch shattered her, vision going white as a strangely cold feeling, like ice deep within her, spread through her body. “Loki!” Her body shuddered beneath him, but her soul soared.

“Oh, Darcy,” he growled, as she shrieked his name repeatedly, lost to the sensations of his touch, his cock, his body over hers — and then he howled her name, and they soared together.

He was right — lost in the bliss of orgasm, she _did_ see the stars, spiraling about them before they came crashing back into themselves, and he collapsed over her, nuzzling his cheek to hers.

“My Darcy,” he breathed, “my beautiful, mortal _goddess_.”

“My sinfully sexy god,” she sighed, resting her head back into the pillows again. “That was so much more than I ever hoped for.” Suddenly, her hands were free, and automatically her fingers slid through his black curls, feeling her heart and his steadying back to normal. “I hope I didn’t disappoint.”

“You could never disappoint,” he whispered, kissing along her cheekbone. “Fate chose you to match me, Darcy. Perhaps even to save me. So no. You did not disappoint.”

Darcy laughed, her hands shifting to unwind her braid. “Sleep?”

“Sleep.”

And sleep they did, though only once her braided hair hung loose once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from Sick Like Me by In This Moment. <_< Noticing the theme yet? ITM is very, very, heavily inspiring this fic.
> 
> Massive thanks to everyone who's commented so far! You guys made me extremely nervous about what's happening here, y'all. I've never actually written a smut fic. So. It's a bit of a thing. I know how it works, but I also have anxiety, so...please, be honest, but in the most positive way you can spin it??


	7. I'm not your perfect fairy tale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The consequences of being Loki's soulmate are just a little more intense than being stuck in an Asgardian prison cell.

The first thing Darcy was aware of was a steady rhythm beating against her cheek. It all felt like a dream in those bleary half-asleep moments — that she had ever come to Asgard, that she had met her soulmate in the prison, that he was everything she’d ever expected and more. Most importantly, that they’d had the most mind-blowing sex Darcy had ever experienced. She’d had her flings, for sure. Everyone she knew, soulmark or not, had their college flings.

As she opened her eyes, seeing the smooth, muscular chest beneath her head under the ever-present lights of the cell, she realized that no, that had most certainly _not_ been a dream. She knew, though, that they’d fallen asleep in much the same position they’d already been in. It seemed that, at some point as they slept, Loki rolled onto his back. And like a cat, she had followed, claiming his chest as a pillow.

“I can tell you’re awake,” he purred, fingers lacing through her long hair.

“How?”

“Your breathing.”

“And how long have you watched me sleep?” Darcy shifted slightly, stretching her legs beneath the blanket he’d pulled over them at some point.

“Perhaps an hour?” He hummed softly, his other hand lifting to touch her cheek. “You ought to leave, Darcy. There is no future with me but this cell.”

“Nope,” she replied, snuggling into his chest. “I like it right here. Call me crazy if you like, but you are never gonna get rid of me.”

His laugh was a delightful rumble that she could feel, drawing a giggle out of her. “You’ve already worked your way into my bed. You are the woman chosen for me by whatever forces guide these soulmarks — Fate, the Norns, some unnameable entity that sees fit to choose who belongs with whom. What should stop you from winding your way into my heart?”

“I dog-ear reference books,” she murmured. “I’m fully willing to play my music at full volume in public. I mispronounce things all the time.”

“And I caused the deaths of many of your kind,” he replied. “Though the first is most certainly a terrible habit.”

“Yeah, yeah, my professors at Culver always got on me about that. I’m nowhere near as bad as I used to be. I used to do it to my favorite books, marking pages with quotes I really liked.” She shrugged, curling into his side before propping her chin on his chest, looking up at him. “As for the whole murdering people thing, I don’t think your mother would’ve let me in here if she thought that was enough to make me leave. Or if she thought you’d be a danger to me.”

“So _trusting_ ,” he laughed.

“She thinks I exist to help you. To redeem you and show you that you’re not what you think you are. That you’re worth saving.” Darcy shrugged a shoulder, fingers trailing over his skin. “With how you’ve been since I walked into the cell, I believe her.”

“Yet still I remain, trapped in this cell for my crimes,” he sighed.

“Tell me.”

Loki’s green eyes met her intense stare. “Tell you what?”

“Tell me why you did it all. Why you tried to kill your brother, why you tried to take Earth for your own.”

“And what good will that do?”

“It’ll get it off your shoulders. Whatever the reasons, I’ll listen.”

He seemed to consider, staring her straight in the eyes. Assessing if he believed her. “And if my answers, my reasons, are not to your liking?”

“They’re your reasons. You’re my soulmate. If I wasn’t going to understand or like your reasons, why would I ask?”

He smiled, and began to weave his tale. He spoke of always being Frigga’s favorite, always being spurned by Odin, always being ridiculed by the palace servants. Of Thor’s friends, who only tolerated his presence because Thor insisted. Of Thor’s coronation, how he had organized the interruption to prevent him ascending to the throne as he was then — arrogant, brash, too eager to go to war — when it seemed he was the only one who saw it.

He told of their journey to Jotunheim, the six of them, and how he tried to prevent it. How Thor provoked Laufey into a fight, resulting in Loki learning his true heritage (and discovering his soulmark, the only thing in his tale that brought a genuine smile to his face), and Odin had to save them. How mere hours after Thor’s banishment, he returned to the vault and confirmed that he was indeed not a son of Odin. How Odin slipped into the coma-like Odinsleep state, and suddenly _he_ , Loki, was king.

“Thor had always spoken of destroying them,” he murmured, fingers combing through Darcy’s brown hair. “Odin always brushed his words aside, saying that a good king never seeks out war. Thor never learned that lesson — not until he was banished. I was simply...acting. I only knew that suddenly I was the monster now, and something in me snapped.”

“It’s called an identity crisis,” Darcy sighed. “Your world changed entirely. That usually comes with some pretty hardcore actions. Not that most people try to kill their brothers —”

“He wasn’t the goal.” The dark edge in his voice struck a cord. Sorrow, anguish...self-hatred. “I was.”

Darcy sat up, hugging the blanket to her chest as she did — remembering his comments from the night before about being willing to murder anyone who caught sight of her naked body. “No...”

“Yes. Finding out I was the monster of nightmares, of teaching tales...it tore a wound. One I do not think has fully healed, even now, two years later.” He sat up beside her, pulling her to him with one arm. “I was never quite so _impulsive_ as those few days. It was perhaps a very poor idea to place me on the throne when I was so suddenly unstable. I became the king I feared Thor would be.”

“Well, I’m glad it didn’t work,” she sighed, leaning her head into his shoulder, one arm shifting to pull him even closer, to offer what little comfort she could.

She didn’t expect his responding laugh to be so _dark_ , or for him to even continue his tale, speaking of falling, falling through the darkness of eternity, to land in what he thought ought to have been Hel. Except it was much worse. He told of pain, both physical and mental. Of being tested, broken, and... _controlled_. Of letting his tormentor — whose name he refused to speak — only see part of his mind, expending far too much energy to keep something of himself. Making a plan far unlike he would normally have made, more overt, more explicit.

Darcy was shocked. Though he skirted the details, there was an uncanny sincerity in his words, in his voice, as he spoke of those months leading up to what had happened in New York.

“So...how did they not..?”

“Not know about my soulmark?” He smiled, tracing his thumb feather-soft against her cheek. “I _am_ quite gifted with illusions, my Darcy. I was barely holding myself together, but a part of me kept a mask over your name, keeping the only thing that showed any hope of finding a way back to...who I was.”

“Of being a better person.”

Loki nodded, his gaze darkening for a moment before he smiled again. “I’m certain you’d like to get dressed,” he commented, shifting back and waving a hand. A familiar leather coat materialized from nothing, laying across the bed in front of Darcy.

But Darcy didn’t move. Her attention was drawn by something beyond the cell, the sound of yelling, of...some sort of pounding, on something that sounded very distinctly like a trampoline.. And then the lights flickered “What’s going on?”

Loki swung his feet from the bed, the casual attire he had worn when she’d arrived materializing across his body as he moved. A loud, distinctly unnatural sound — louder than an unhappy exhaust pipe, but quieter than an explosion — erupted from somewhere else in the prison, followed by what sounded like the cries of a dying cow on helium and some really intense pounding on what was probably the ground.

“Stay there,” he commanded, walking to the front barrier and leaning a hand upon the corner pillar. Darcy only moved to grab the coat, shoving one arm through and then the other — it smelled so _good_ , so warm and so like _him_ — while still hugging the blanket to her chest.

Something roared — a guttural, animal sound, like a lion. A moment passed. And then the screaming started.

“Okay, _that_ is definitely _bad_ ,” she decided, hugging the blanket tighter even as Loki lifted his free hand in that universal signal to be quiet. _Not the time to fantasize about his fingers, someone’s probably dying!_

Then there was an explosion.

“Fuck!”

The sound of swords being swung was distinctive. Darcy had seen enough epic fantasy movies to recognize it. There was nothing she could even think of doing, not now, not — oh, that was the sound of bodies hitting the floor.

“Loki?” she whispered cautiously, leaning forward. “Can you see what’s happening?”

“It’s too far down,” he hissed. “These accursed lights are _blinding_.”

A sword clattered to the ground, causing Darcy to jump. Whoever had been fighting was probably dead now.

Then there was another explosion — the same that had sounded moments before.

This was a prison break.

“Fuck,” she gasped, still watching Loki. “this is bad, isn’t it?”

“Indeed.”

“You’ll keep me safe, right?”

Loki chuckled, glancing back. “I would be a poor soulmate indeed if I let someone harm you, wouldn’t I?”

Another explosion, and another. More and more cells were being broken open, and now there was shouting in the corridors. It was turning into a full-scale riot, as the prisoners began indiscriminately attacking guards.

Then the creature approached their cell. Horns and spikes and strange leather. Obviously taller than even Loki — probably even Thor. As it approached, Loki began to pace, like a caged tiger, even as Darcy hugged the blanket closer to her chest. It spared her one look — as if it was appraising them, the cell, the _furniture_ — as it approached. Darcy curled in on herself when it raised a fist to the barrier —

And lowered it, turning away.

Loki watched the creature walk away for several moments, before he turned on his heel, pacing back to the bed. “Well, that’s certainly an interesting development,” he commented, as Darcy let loose the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. “Are you all right?”

“I...I will be,” she stammered, flopping onto her back. “What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know.”

Darcy looked at him, brows quirked. “I thought you were the smart one.”

He laughed. “That just means I know much. I don’t know _everything_. That is Mother’s territory.”

“She’s a seer, right?”

Nodding, Loki stood. “Would you like to read something?”

She grinned. “Actually, I was wondering if you could read to me.”

“Oh? And what would you like me to read for you?”

More guards were flooding the corridor — she could hear them, their armor and their swords — and here she was, asking her soulmate to read her a story. “Poe? Not one of the poems, though. The Masque of the Red Death is a personal favorite.” She snuggled down into the blankets, still wearing his coat. “If you don’t mind.”

“That happens to be one of _my_ favorites as well, though it is quite a dark tale,” he teased, swiping the book up and returning to the bed. His long legs stretched over the blankets, his back against the headboard, as he flipped the worn pages to the familiar story’s beginning. She shifted, resting her head against his waist, as he began to read. _“The ‘Red Death’ had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous.”_

He had the perfect sort of voice for reading aloud, Darcy thought. Slow, even, rich in tone. Even with the background noise of the battle, she found her eyes slipping closed. The tale was familiar, a story of death and fear, but it wasn’t a poorly told tale by any stretch of the imagination.

It was only when the fighting stopped and she heard a familiar voice in the corridor that she sat bolt upright, holding the blanket tight to her chest.

“Return to your cells and no further harm will come to you, you have my word.”

“Shit!” she exclaimed, attempting to dive underneath the blanket as Loki laughed, slipping the bookmark in place.

“Oh, this should be interesting,” he drawled, setting the book upon the pillow and pulling her close, against his chest. “Are you concerned what he’ll think of _this_?”

“No, I’m afraid of what _Jane_ will say,” she squeaked. “I kind of ditched her in the palace before I ran into your mom.”

“You value her opinion.”

“I value having a job of some kind.”

“ _Darcy?”_

The incredulous voice that spoke was definitely not Thor’s. Darcy slowly lifted her head, sheepishly meeting Fandral’s gaze. “Hi.”

“What are you _doing_ in there?!” he spat, as he parried an attack.

“Long story short, soulmark.”

“ _What?!”_

“Yep!” She beamed, curling in against Loki’s chest, trying to hide her embarrassment. Fandral had been an insatiable flirt in New Mexico, for the few moments they’d spoken. Darcy didn’t want to say anything about that to Loki. At all. His incredible possessiveness in the moment the night before might have been hot as hell, but she did _not_ want Fandral’s blood on her hands.

Thor would kill her.

“When did that happen?” Fandral snapped, turning to fully face the cell. “I thought you were Unmarked!”

“As did I for over a thousand years,” Loki drawled. “Our little _venture_ to Jotunheim was far more enlightening than I implied.”

Fandral gaped for a moment, before a violent swing drew him back into the battle. “This is certainly an interesting development!”

“What is, Fandral?”

“I’m screwed,” Darcy whimpered, turning to burrow her face into Loki’s chest. His laughter rumbled through her as he tightened his hold. “I’m naked except for a blanket and your leather jacket, and I haven’t showered since yesterday morning.”

“Hello, _brother_ ,” Loki greeted. “Come to see if I am the cause of the escape?”

“Clearly you cannot be, given you continue to be imprisoned.” Thor sounded incredibly frustrated for a moment — and then he noticed. _“Darcy?!”_

She didn’t look up, merely lifting her left hand and waving.

“How…?”

“Mother decided I needed my _soulmate_.” With a gentle touch, he tugged the sleeve of his coat back from Darcy’s wrist, exposing the stark black lines upon her fair skin. “And as much as I try to tell her she ought to leave, she _insists_ upon remaining here.”

“Is this true, Darcy?”

“A hundred percent!” she confirmed. “So you can tell Jane I’m all right!”

“Look at me, Darcy.”

“Nope. Not looking up.”

“Why?”

“Thor, you cannot _possibly_ tell me you cannot recognize when a woman has been completely _ravished_ by a lover?” Loki’s sarcasm amused Darcy thoroughly, bringing a giggle from her even as she tried to hide her face even further into his chest.

“A little help, Thor!” called another familiar voice — Volstagg, oh _god_ , Darcy flushed even harder.

“We will continue this later,” Thor assured, turning back to the battle.

But he didn’t return. An urgent situation called him away from the prison, and Darcy and Loki were left to themselves, content despite the vague uneasiness.

As the battle died down, Loki resumed reading aloud, going into another story immediately upon finishing the Masque of the Red Death. She was too comfortable to move, even as the battle died down, and his voice was hypnotic. Finally, after the third tale, Darcy wiggled from her soulmate’s grasp, wrapping his coat tightly around herself like a bathrobe that had lost its belt.

“I need a shower, and I need it now,” she insisted. “Wait for me?”

“Of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are happening! I hope the way I handled this is...satisfactory. I'm trying to make sure everything makes sense, that it all...fits. Y'know?
> 
> Chapter title taken from the song Witching Hour by In This Moment, and I did indeed quote the first two lines of The Masque of the Red Death. It is legitimately one of my favorites of Poe's short stories, the first one I read by choice. I also love The Black Cat (that one's a bit more intense, moreso than The Tell-Tale Heart, and that's saying something). In fact, the unnamed other two stories Loki reads to Darcy here are The Black Cat and The Pit and the Pendulum.


	8. Don’t you wanna turn the beauty into the beast?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All good things must come to an end. But one ending is another beginning.

“ _Darcy...”_

Frigga’s familiar voice startled Darcy’s eyes open. Still within the shower’s confined space, hair under the stream of warm, clean water, she found herself face-to-face with the queen of Asgard. But she didn’t look  _right_ . Darcy found herself frozen in place, holding her breath.

“ _I have one last gift for you, Darcy.”_ The queen reached her hands forward, towards Darcy’s cheeks. _“You are strong. But I will make you stronger.”_

She expected the queen’s hands to simply pass through her — she couldn’t be here, not looking like this, so  _pale_ , so  _tired_ . Then her hands made contact, and Darcy’s vision exploded in white, turning to gold, turning to green, before returning to normal.

The queen was gone, and Darcy was on the floor of the tiny shower.

Darcy couldn’t be sure what she’d seen was real or some kind of hallucination. Whatever it was, it was weird, and she wasn’t done with her shower yet.

* * *

As Darcy finally stepped out of the shower, she took the soft green silk gown from the top of one of the stacks of clothing and stepped into it, tying the halter neck under her long, still-wet hair and stepping up to look into the mirror. Something was missing, she observed. The gown was far too shapeless, and too long.

She turned back — ah! An oddly shaped golden piece lay on top of the stack that had held the gown. Carefully, she lifted it, letting it fall open. It was interesting, like wings, with a corset style back. Corsets, she was familiar with. She didn’t wear them, but she knew how to handle them. Easily, she slipped it on overhead, tugging the fabric into place before she tugged the laces.

With a nod to her reflection, she stepped to the curtain that separated her dressing space from the rest of Loki’s cell, and, as she was about to open it, she heard someone approaching beyond.

“ **Your mother is dead.”**

Four simple words, the most damning Darcy could ever imagine. “No,” she gasped, flinging the curtain open and taking a single step forward. She almost immediately stepped back into the refuge, as Loki stood and started pacing in her direction, a storm in his eyes. But she didn’t. No, Darcy had never been the sort to back down from any real challenge (the Destroyer was a special circumstance, biting wit wasn’t going to protect her from a fire-blasting metal giant), so she strode forward and flung her arms around him.

“Darcy,” he breathed, his hands not moving to embrace her.

“Shh, you don’t have to say anything.” She didn’t know what to say — and Darcy Lewis rendered speechless was rare indeed. She still wasn’t even sure what she’d seen, heard, _felt_ in the shower was real, but she knew that wasn’t something he needed to hear about.

He needed comfort, and Thor sure as hell wasn’t coming to provide that.

Neither of them said a word for several minutes, standing at the center of his cell. Eventually, his hands lifted to her back, and he settled his cheek against the top of her head, but no further than that. They stood still, silent, and close.

This, Darcy found herself thinking, is the purpose of a soulmate. To find the  _one_ person you can trust to be strong when it feels like your world is ending. Already, Darcy felt like she could trust Loki with her life.

There was something that Darcy’s grandmother had said to her once.  _“There are no secrets between soulmates.”_ Even though Loki was supposed to be the god of lies, mischief, trickery, and misdirection, Darcy trusted him.

She couldn’t help the innate drive to trust.

“I did this.”

His words were so soft, Darcy wouldn’t have heard them if they were anywhere else.

“What do you mean?” She gingerly pulled back — not far enough to break his hold, but enough to look up into his eyes. “You couldn’t have done this, you were _here_ , Loki.”

“I...I did this, I told that _thing_ how to get out of here, I led it right to her,” he rambled, still keeping his voice quiet even as his words ran together, faster and more stressed with each passing syllable. “I hid it from you because I knew you wouldn’t approve, wouldn’t understand, but I did this to her, I led that _creature_ right to her!” He pulled back now, stepping away, and for the moment, Darcy let him. “If I hadn’t said anything, she would be alive right now.”

“You don’t know that, Loki.” Darcy twisted her hands together, taking a single half-step towards him. “Your mother is...a great woman, and we don’t have any details. We just have four words delivered by Faceless Guard #5 in what Odin probably calls mercy, but it isn’t. It’s torture, just like locking you down here, alone, for a _year_ , with nothing but a pile of books for company. I think he knows that, Loki, and he wants to break you.”

Slowly, she turned, pacing towards the bed. “The only solution to that is to find out as many details as we can get. The only  _problem_ with that solution is, I don’t think I should leave.”

“I don’t think you _can_ anymore,” Loki admitted.

“That, too. Which leaves us staring at an unsolvable situation, _unless_ you have some tricks up your sleeves that you haven’t mentioned yet.”

He laughed, finally. A weak laugh, but it was there nonetheless. “What sort of trick are you suggesting, my Darcy?”

“Well, I know we don’t have access to a crystal ball down here, but maybe if you know how to do astral projection?” She turned, a hopeful but weak smile lifting a corner of her lips.

He sighed, holding out a hand. “Sadly, that is a gift I have that I cannot use here,” he confessed. “These barriers hold in my magic. I can only affect what is within these four walls, nothing beyond them.”

“Damn.” She sighed, finally stepping up and taking his hand. “Do these guards ever bring food? I haven’t eaten anything but the packs of trail mix in my coat since jumping on the Bifrost Express.”

“I had been wondering what these were,” he said, pulling from what seemed to be thin air a bundle of plastic wrappers.

“How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Make stuff appear from thin air. It’s like, the _ultimate_ magic trick and I wanna know how you do it.”

Loki burst out laughing, letting the wrappers vanish once again. “It was one of the earliest things I mastered the use of — I believe you would call it a  _pocket dimension_ , but it really is much more like a fold in the fabric of reality. It is where I keep my armor, where I  _would_ keep my daggers, if Odin hadn’t demanded I hand them all over. And,” he raised his hand again, palm nearly flat, and with a familiar glow, a perfect apple appeared in his hand, “it keeps things fresh.”

“Oh my god, _yes_!” she shrieked, taking the apple and breathing in the fragrance. “Ugh, how did you know Granny Smith apples are my favorite?”

“I didn’t,” he replied, stepping aside to settle himself in on the foot of his bed. “They’re something I discovered during a prior stay on Earth, and one of _my_ favorites.”

Darcy hesitated a moment, before taking a seat beside him. “You think you’d ever teach someone magic?”

“Oh, you mean teach _you_ , Darcy?”

“Yep!”

He sighed, conjuring up another apple for himself. “Perhaps someday. It is, after all, Mother’s legacy.”

“She taught you?”

“Everything I know.”

Silence fell between the pair, besides the crunching bites of apple that intermittently sounded as they ate. It wasn’t often that Darcy felt comfortable with quiet, but here, with him, she did. There were no expectations. She had nothing to prove to him, and needed nothing from him.

Eventually, he said, “You look  _fantastic_ in my colors, Darcy.”

She laughed, brushing a hand through her hair. “I like green. It brings out my eyes.” She set the apple’s core aside, shifting in place to face him again. “You know, if you need to...I don’t know, break something, I can go back into the dressing room. I...”

“No,” he replied softly. “She -”

“She wouldn’t want you to bottle it all up, Loki. That’s bad for you. Eventually, everything comes spilling out at the worst moment, and I think we can both agree that’s a bad thing. So,” Darcy stood, lifting her skirt enough to not trip and backing away, “I’m going to take this,” she picked up a book at random from the nearest stack — Shakespeare, and fittingly one of the plays she hadn’t actually read yet, “and I’m going to sit in the comfy armchair in this little side room. Let me know when it’s safe to come out!”

She stepped behind the curtain, sinking into the chair easily and curling up to open the book, reading through the cast of characters before diving into the meat of the story. As one does, when faced with Shakespeare. And she very pointedly ignored the sudden sounds of crashing and breaking coming from the main room of the Asgardian prison cell.

Keeping all of those volatile emotions bottled up wasn’t good for  _anyone_ , especially not the god of mischief. Darcy wasn’t going to keep him from expressing them. She just didn’t want to be in the path of destruction that she  _knew_ he would be unleashing. He wasn’t even physically  _in_ Puente Antiguo and he left a nasty wave of destruction behind — and that wasn’t the same kind of grief.

* * *

Two hours passed. Darcy was still curled up in the armchair when she heard Loki’s whisper.

“Stay there, Darcy.”

“What?” She shot up out of the comfortable seat, shifting the curtains aside to look out into the cell. And what she expected to see, was not the sight that greeted her.

She saw two versions of the cell — one destroyed and definitely real, one impeccable and illusory, the latter superimposed uncomfortably over the former. In the reality, Loki sat against the back wall, just  _inches_ past the curtain. In the illusion, however, the curtain was still closed, she sat upright on the bed, cocooned in blankets with mussed hair, and Loki, fully clothed, was approaching the window.

“ _Thor,”_ the illusion declared — and now Darcy could see him, approaching the front window, _“It takes a prison riot for you to come to visit me alone.”_ The illusory Loki leaned forward, abruptly, like a caged animal. _“Why? Have you come to gloat? To mock?”_

“Loki, enough,” Thor stated, calmer than Darcy expected. “No more illusions.”

Darcy leaned and slid down against the wall, as the illusion glimmered away, resting her head easily on his shoulder. She wasn’t surprised when he did not raise his hand to pull her closer.

“Now you see me, brother,” the very real Loki sighed. His voice was tired. Broken, almost. Thor approached further, but did not step to the side window, wringing his wrists. “Did she suffer?”

“I did not come here to share in our grief, Loki.” Thor’s reply was short, glancing about the hall as if concerned someone would appear to take him from the prisons. “Instead, I offer you the chance of a far richer sacrament.”

“Go on.”

“I know you seek vengeance, as much as I do. You help me escape Asgard, and I will grant it to you. Vengeance — and afterward, this cell.”

“Okay, hold up, Thor, _really_?” Darcy shoved herself up onto her feet, stalking forward. “Is that all you’re here for? To offer a carrot, a bone, a _taste_ of freedom for just a fleeting moment, and then let him sit here and rot away for the rest of eternity? Yeah, uh-uh, that’s _bullshit_ and you know it, Thor.”

“Darcy —”

“No, I’m not done. You’ll have a chance at a counterargument, but right now, Darcy Lewis has the floor,” she unleashed. “Look at it this way, Thor. A lot of what he did can be chalked up to a really extreme reaction to what your parents forced on him, and the way the rest of Asgard has treated him for his _entire_ life. He told me everything. And you wanna know what makes it worse? Today’s my _birthday_ , Thor. I’m twenty-seven years old. I was _riding_ the cusp of _losing an arm_ because of Asgard’s bullshit.”

“What?” Both brothers spoke together, Thor a half-second behind his younger brother in his alarm.

“Yeah, that’s what happens when soulmates don’t meet on time. At least on Earth. The mark gets _infected_ , and nine times out of ten, we lose the arm. So, have a birthday-based counter offer. Loki helps you escape, gets his vengeance, and then you secure a meeting with your dear old _daddy_ to make a case for a lesser sentence. Maybe probation on Earth! We could use a more permanently stationed Asgardian to play the hero!”

Thor stepped back, visibly, as Darcy folded her arms across her chest. “Oh, and I need three days on Earth with him. That’s what you and Jane got, so I’m demanding it in return. Call that one a birthday gift.”

Loki’s laugh was a welcome sound, as was his rising from the floor. “Well, you are a wicked one, aren’t you?” he finally said, slowly stepping up behind her.

“I can make you no oaths, Darcy,” Thor admitted, bowing his head slightly, “but I can promise you, I will endeavor to see Loki’s sentence lessened.”

“And my three days?”

Thor simply smiled.

Darcy tried not to laugh as Loki leaned into her back, his chin on her shoulder. “When do we start?”

“Immediately.” He stepped up to the corner pillar, pressing his hand to a panel, turning off the cell’s protection system. “If you have anything you wish to bring home with you, Darcy —”

“I’ll take care of _that_ , Thor,” Loki smirked. “As for her travel attire — well, as much as I _love_ the green silk, it simply isn’t meant for it.” He closed his eyes, wove a quick pattern of golden light in the air, and gestured in Darcy’s direction. A moment of uncomfortable _pressure_ passed over her frame — that was new — and suddenly, her emerald satin was replaced with comfortable ivory cotton in a style that swirled around her feet, the familiar feeling of a loose set of capris, the cool feel of leather bracers suddenly wrapped tight to her wrists, and the chill of the dungeon air on suddenly nearly bare feet, clad in leather and metal rivets. Gladiator sandals.

But the crowning jewel of this outfit was the golden armor of the bodice that fitted itself into place over her torso. Twisting her head, she discovered intricately molded wings against her back.

“Uh, are you expecting me to fight?” Darcy’s voice rose slightly as she looked over at her soulmate.

“No,” he admitted, “but it is always better to be prepared for the possibility.” With that, his own casual clothing — he was down to just a shirt and pants! This was a momentous day! — melted into the more familiar leather battle attire, his hair quickly taming into soft, half-bound curls.

“In that case.” Darcy spun on her heel, darting back into the dressing room space and walking out with all the clothes that Frigga had gifted her piled high on both arms, setting them on the bed and turning back in. “I am not leaving without this _heavenly_ soap,” she snarked, setting the small tub on top of the stack and turning back to face him, golden Asgardian Taser-device in hand. “I’m ready to go!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this one got a little weird, I admit it. I'm concerned that Darcy's ranting might be too much fanservice, but I've been sitting on this chapter nervously for a couple weeks now and I just needed to bite the bullet. xD
> 
> Some of the background worldbuilding I've been doing finally makes its appearance here; yeah, it's dramatic. Yes, what happened at the beginning of the chapter gets explained later.
> 
> Chapter title from The Beast Within by In This Moment.


	9. From the ashes, I will rise again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's a little treason but an opportunity for Darcy and Loki to bond?

By comparison to Thor’s plan in New Mexico, this was a flawless heist. Then again, his plan in New Mexico had been just walking straight up the street and talking, which _technically_ resulted in his _death_.

Not that Darcy was counting, of course.

Loki, on the other hand, was in top form. Darcy hadn’t seen him this happy before — it helped that she was finally seeing him in more natural light. His skin was ashen under the bright light of the cell, but in the warm daylight, he reminded her of Anne Rice’s vampires. He had Lestat’s grace and self-importance, Louis’s tragic backstory and deep well of emotion, and a sort of youthfulness mixed with ancient knowledge that only served to remind her of Armand.

This wasn’t the time to be making literary comparisons, though — they were outpacing her.

Again.

“Thor, damn it, I’m only _five foot four_ , the least you could do is make sure I don’t have to run to keep up!”

“I could _carry_ you,” Loki offered, turning back to wink at her.

“That...would actually be preferable, hold up.”

Loki paused, holding a hand out for his soulmate, but in true Darcy Lewis fashion, she had other ideas. Taking advantage of his stillness, she took a few running steps and launched herself up onto his back, hooking her feet together at his waist and clinging to his shoulders. He barely moved in immediate response, not even shaken by her weight.

A true testament to how much stronger he was.

“What are you doing?”

“What’s it look like? You’re giving me a piggy-back ride!”

The looks of confusion on both Loki and Thor’s faces were absolutely priceless. If only Darcy’d had her phone out to capture the moment. With a huff, she locked her arms around his chest. “It helps if you support my knees with your hands,” she advised, “but if you’d rather carry me like a damsel in distress, that’s cool, too. Just not what I had in mind.”

“Perhaps we should slow our pace some, brother,” Thor admitted. “I confess, I had not taken into account the fact that you are —”

“That I’m a shrimp compared to you absolute _giants_? Sounds right.” She dropped down slowly, lingering at Loki’s back before stepping up beside him. “Maybe this time just let me set the pace while you lead us? Where are we going, anyway?”

“We’re getting aboard a ship and getting out of Asgard.”

Apparently, Darcy was going to be adding _rode an alien spaceship_ to her list of Things I Did in Asgard. And she was getting at least two pictures while they were on board. She needed evidence!

Jane would be so proud of her for thinking of it.

Jane was going to be there.

Darcy hadn’t thought of Jane more than once in the past couple days, and Jane was the entire reason they were even here, in the Realm Eternal, committing high treason.

Well, at least they’d be doing so together.

“This is so _unlike_ you, brother,” Loki drawled, keeping one hand at Darcy’s back. Almost like a reminder to pace his footsteps. “So clandestine. Are you absolutely certain you wouldn’t rather just punch your way out?”

“If we did not have additional company to be concerned about, I just might,” Thor replied, sparing half a glance for Darcy.

“As you wish, then.” Loki didn’t even make an intricate hand gesture or say a word as, between one step and the next, his entire body was covered in that golden-green light, and then he wasn’t himself anymore, but a random, nondescript guard. “Is this better?”

“You have _got_ to teach me how to do that!” Darcy giggled.

Loki smirked. “Or we could be even _less_ conspicuous.” This time the light encompassed Darcy and Thor, and a split second later, Darcy wasn’t Darcy anymore. Tumbling blonde curls, slimmer hips, dressed in soft blue satin and silver accessories. She paused, looking down at her hands, before glancing over at Thor and bursting out laughing.

Thor...was Lady Sif.

“It will hurt no less when I kill you in this form,” Thor’s voice rumbled from Sif’s mouth. It was jarring, but only in the sense that it made Darcy laugh even _louder_.

“Very well. Perhaps you’d prefer some of your new companions, given that you seem to like them so much.” The light was back, wrapping across all three of them, and this time, Darcy was very confused.

Looking down at her own body, she saw — Hawkeye. His hands, his combat suit, his boots, his archer’s gloves, and in her left hand, she was holding his bow.

“Oh, this is _much_ better!”

That wasn’t Loki’s voice.

Darcy’s head snapped up — the lack of curls flying into her face was incredibly bizarre — and locked on the form of her soulmate, who _currently_ wore the appearance of Captain America himself.

“The costume's a bit much, so tight! But the confidence! I can feel the righteousness surging.” Darcy couldn’t restrain her giggles once again, trying and failing to adopt for her own the strut that only came with wearing Clint Barton’s tactical boots, as Loki spun. The shield he’d given himself swung through the air with a satisfying ringing sound. “Hey, you wanna have a rousing discussion about truth, honor, patriotism? God bless Amer—”

And all of a sudden Thor had lunged, pinning Loki against a pillar of the corridor with his hand over his mouth. Darcy dove after him, tucking herself against the stone at Loki’s side.

“What?” Loki asked, annoyed, illusions dispelled.

Thor nodded further down the hallway, to where a pair of guards patrolled.

“Doesn’t look like they noticed us,” Darcy sighed.

“The _least_ you could do is furnish me with a weapon,” Loki complained. “My dagger, something, _anything_ of the sort.”

Thor sighed, pulling something from under his cape. It couldn’t be that easy. Darcy knew there was no way it could be that simple.

“Ah, a little common sense.”

Unfortunately, that statement was far too accurate, as the set of manacles wound around his hands. Darcy found herself staring.

“I need some of those,” she muttered, turning to Thor.

“I thought you liked tricks, brother!” the god of thunder laughed.

“That wasn’t very funny, Thor. I hope you have an extra set, though.” She started forward, checking the corridor.

“As delightful as that might be, Darcy, we haven’t the time,” Loki teased, coming up behind her and resting bound arms on her shoulders.

“Well, yeah, I know that, but that’s not why we need an extra set.” She sighed, nibbling at her left thumb-nail slightly. “That _thing_ , from the dungeons, it saw me. In your cell. If we try to sell them that I’m just as dangerous as you, if not more, it’s only believable if I’m cuffed, too.”

Loki hummed as they started to walk forward, footsteps in time. “The cuffs are very restricting. Are you certain you can handle it?”

“I do believe I can,” Darcy mused, wrapping her hands into his. Even with the restraints, the pose felt almost...natural. Easy. Maybe it was just an effect of being soulmates. Maybe it was more than that. She had no idea what was happening here, she just knew that it was. “As I’m sure you know, I’m not much of a fighter. If it comes to that, I’m dead weight no matter what.”

“You knocked the god of thunder unconscious without assistance,” Loki purred, lips against the curve of her ear. “If any mortal woman could be inducted into the Valkyrie, I’d wager it would be a close tie between yourself and the Widow.”

“I thought you swore not to tell another soul of the Taser,” Thor rumbled, glancing at the tiny brunette from the corner of his eye.

“There are no secrets between soulmates, Thor. A relationship built around secrets and lies isn’t a relationship at all. It is itself a lie.”

“That is quite a philosophy to hold.”

“Well, it just makes sense to me. But it’s mostly just something my Gramma Dee used to say all the time.”

The three of them stopped at the mouth of a branching corridor, Thor looking off into the distance to keep an eye for any guards or worse. Darcy found herself leaning against the side of the side path, so she was the first who saw them approaching.

“Jane!”

The astrophysicist came running up the hall ahead of the one and only Lady Sif, who held her sword and shield at the ready, flinging her arms around the intern. “Darcy, where the hell have you been?!”

“That’s a bit of a...story...” But Jane released her before she could explain, wide eyes fixed upon the trickster at the end of the corridor, approaching with a hand raised.

“You’re...”

“I’m Loki, you may have heard of m —”

A resounding _smack_ proved exactly what Jane had done. Sif and Darcy shared a look.

“Uh, I already did that. Twice, actually,” Darcy laughed, walking over and setting an arm on Jane’s shoulder. “He’s kinda my soulmate.”

“Please, _please_ tell me you’re joking, Darce.”

“Serious as a wrecking ball. It’s messy, but we’re gonna deal with it, right?” Darcy glanced at Loki with an easy smile. “First things first, what has been going on with _you_? I’ve kinda been willingly living in a prison cell, I have no idea what’s happening here.”

“Short version, this _thing_ in my body is really powerful and trying to kill me, and the attack was orchestrated to get this thing, this Aether, but again, _really powerful_ , so we can’t let it fall into the hands of the dark elves.”

Darcy nodded. “So you’re the MacGuffin.”

“So I’m the MacGuffin, and you’re the soulmate of my soulmate’s brother, who not only tried to kill us personally, but also tried to take over the world!” Jane looked...concerned. “Are you sure you’re not joking?”

“I’m absolutely sure. This would be too complicated for me. You know how my jokes go. A little harmless whoopie cushion here, a little hacked blackmail there, nothing massive and orchestrated and super illegal like falsely claiming to be someone’s soulmate. My cousin Julian did that.”

“I’ve never heard about your cousin Julian.”

“That’s because he’s been in prison since I was in eighth grade. I don’t talk about him a lot.”

The clanging of armor was unmistakable, coming from the same direction Sif and Jane had approached. “There they are!”

“Time to go,” Darcy chirped, linking her arm to Jane’s and pulling her along. “We should get a head start, these two have _really_ long legs and I don’t think we have time to take it easy. Plus we’re both in dresses, and they have _pants_. Seriously, you couldn’t have just given me my normal clothes?” Darcy glanced back, expecting Loki to be immediately behind her.

He wasn’t.

He was a few paces behind her now, his trademark smirk spread across his features.

“What did you do,” Darcy sighed, continuing to walk even as she spoke.

“I did nothing,” Loki drawled, raising his cuffed hands palm-forward. “I am merely pleased that Sif is still entirely herself.”

Darcy, Jane, and Thor all paused for a moment, looking at the trickster. “I don’t know what that means,” Darcy began, “but I don’t _want_ to, that sounds _terrifying_.”

“There are a great many worlds and species beyond Yggdrasil, Darcy,” he replied, catching up to them and leaning down to press a kiss to the top of her head. “I would carry you, but these manacles would make it most uncomfortable.”

* * *

A hurried dash through the palace corridors, a short greeting spared for Volstagg’s waiting form as he readied his axe for the incoming horde of guards, during which Volstagg spared a moment to threaten Loki, and they were aboard the black, oddly shaped spaceship. Darcy couldn’t resist pulling Jane into her side for a quick selfie with Thor and Loki in the background.

“Why?”

“Evidence, Jane, _evidence_. I need to be able to shove it in Tony’s face that I’ve been on a spaceship.”

“Since when do you and Tony Stark talk?”

“Since he emailed me after Bruce sent me the stuff I asked for from New York.” Darcy tapped out a note on her phone before tucking it back into the only pocket she had in this ensemble.

Meanwhile, Thor was smacking every visible button on the console, as Loki made idle comments like the worst backseat driver ever.

“No, don’t hit it, just press it gently,” he huffed, rolling his eyes and sparing Darcy a look.

“Lemme have a look,” Darcy stated, shoving her way into the console space and looking over the symbols.

She didn’t understand any of them, but it couldn’t be too hard...and she had a nagging feeling. So she leaned over, past Thor, to press in a section of the panel that didn’t actually look like a button, and the ship rumbled to life. A holographic image of their surroundings sprung up around them, tinted blue with a grid network laid over it. On a whim, Darcy pressed another button on the side of the console nearest her — and suddenly the hologram wasn’t just blue anymore, but a photorealistic image in full color.

“How did you..?”

“A hunch, that’s all,” Darcy shrugged, shifting to lean into Loki. “So what’s the plan after this? There’s no fucking _way_ the city won’t notice this thing, unless you feel like finding its cloaking technology.”

Thor huffed as he placed his hands on the flight controls and began maneuvering the ship face out of the lattice covering the broadest exit point.

In the process, he destroyed nearly every column in the throne room. “I think you might’ve missed one,” Loki commented, staring at his brother for a moment before sparing a glance for his soulmate.

“Shut up!” Thor snapped, as they shot out of the throne room and over the city. Okay, that was weird. The flat parts of the ship weren’t stationary. They spun. And when they spun, there was a distortion on the sides of the images.

“Excuse me?” Darcy asked, eyebrows flying up her forehead, even as Loki began, “Why don’t you let me take over? I’m clearly a better pilot, and I don’t think our passengers would appreciate colliding with everything that comes into our path.”

“Which one of us can _actually_ fly?” Thor laughed.

“Being able to fly yourself doesn’t automatically translate to flying a ship, Thor. And you didn’t answer the question. What’s the plan going forward?”

Thor sighed, glancing back for a half a moment. “Fandral will be waiting at the outskirts of the city in a...commandeered skiff, below the wall to keep it out of sight. This ship will then serve as a distraction, hopefully keeping the rest of Asgard occupied.”

Darcy nodded, glancing up at Loki. “That...is actually a pretty good plan. Not the most _amazing_ plan, I mean, in theory you could’ve had Sif and Fandral flying this thing while we slipped out of the palace in that same commandeered skiff, and once we were gone, they could just land somewhere and surrender.”

“Doesn’t have the same punch to it, I suppose,” Loki commented, just as Jane, off to their right, collapsed. “Oh, dear. Is she dead?”

“Jane!” Thor and Darcy shouted, while the latter dashed over to check on her. Jane slowly raised a hand, attempting to wave her off, but Darcy just pulled her into a sitting position. “Come on, you’re missing all the fun stuff. Thor keeps hitting stuff with the wings of the ship and it’s hilarious, especially because he thinks he’s a good pilot.”

“Come now, Darcy,” Loki admonished with a wink and a smirk. “He’s clearly having fun.”

As if on cue, Thor slammed into the top of a tower. “Not a word!” he shouted, sparing a moment to glance over at Jane and Darcy before turning his eyes to Loki.

Darcy held Jane in a sitting position, keeping her facing forward even as she herself kept an eye on their surroundings, watching for more things Thor smacked into. That was why she noticed them. “Uh, Thor, are those the skiffs you’re talking about Fandral having one of? ‘Cause I think they’re following us.”

A second later, and they were shooting.

“Now they’re firing at us!” Loki declared.

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Darcy blurted, giving her soulmate a look and a grin. “I mean, I feel them hitting us.”

“Thank you for the commentary, it’s not at _all_ distracting!” Thor spat, not even looking at either of them. And then he dug the longer end of the ship into a bridge, spun it horizontal, and decapitated a statue.

“Well done — you just decapitated your grandfather.” Darcy snorted in response to Loki’s continuing commentary, and even Jane gave a weak laugh.

“He’s funny,” she admitted.

“See? We’re a match made in heaven. Or hell, depending on your opinion.”

“I do not think soulmates are decided in Hel, Darcy,” Loki commented, eyebrows furrowed.

“It’s a saying we have in the States — you know, the country we’re from on Earth. A really perfect for each other match, soulmates or not, is a match made in heaven, unless they’re both criminally inclined or extremely sarcastic. Like Bonnie and Clyde. They were a match made in hell, especially since Clyde was already married to another woman when he met his soulmate. And then they went on a bank robbery spree that ended in them getting riddled with bullets.”

“Interesting.”

“Loki,” Thor said, tapping a couple buttons on the console like he knew what they meant or something, causing a door on the side of the ship to slide open, “grab Darcy and jump.”

“What?!” Darcy protested. “I’m holding Jane up!”

“I’ll follow you in a moment with her, now go with Loki! He won’t break something when he lands!”

Loki nodded and hurried over. “Come, Darcy,” he whispered, “I can’t get my arms under you if you don’t move.”

Easing Jane down onto the floor again, Darcy slowly lifted herself up enough for Loki to lift her, locking her arms around his neck. “If you fucking drop me, I swear, I will haunt you for the rest of your life.”

He laughed quietly, nudging her cheek. “You already will.” And he leapt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I just needed to show Loki and Darcy just making this trip _absolute hell_ on Thor, because come on. Darcy would absolutely join in on Loki's backseat driving. They really are two sides of the same coin.
> 
> If any of you have figured out what, exactly, Frigga's appearance in the start of last chapter means, some of the things Darcy does in this chapter will make perfect sense to you.
> 
> Chapter title from In This Moment's song _From The Ashes_
> 
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> 


	10. Through your rage I can be saved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pathways between realms aren't all they're cracked up to be. Especially the hidden ones.

When Loki landed in the skiff, he quickly set Darcy onto her feet. “See?” he laughed. “Nothing to worry about.”

“I never want to do that again,” Darcy muttered, turning to the side of the craft and gracelessly vomiting over the side, just as Thor landed with Jane. “I’m not really the biggest fan of falling, even if I know there’s something that’s gonna catch me. It fucking sucks.” And she heaved again. “Oh, I hate throwing up...”

“Had I known you were coming, I might’ve brought something to settle your stomach, Darcy!” Fandral chuckled, stepping forward to offer her a hand — which Darcy promptly waved off.

“I’ll be fine, I just...need a second.”

“You might want to take a seat, Darcy,” Loki drawled gently as he settled in at the steering mechanism. “This will get a bit rough.”

“Right, secret ways out of Asgard, sounds like a fun time!” Darcy laughed, flopping onto her back against the bench opposite Loki. “How much worse can it get?”

And of course, as if summoned by those fateful words, one of the other skiffs broke off from chasing the big, destructive ship, and began firing upon them. Loki began weaving in a serpentine pattern to avoid their weapons, before lifting the craft up from the water’s surface.

“Lesson learned: never ask how much worse it can get!”

“Fandral,” Thor commanded, turning to his friend.

The slighter man nodded, taking the end of a spool of rope and wrapping it about his hand. “For Asgard.” And he jumped, falling until the rope snapped taught and swung backwards. Darcy grabbed a knife from a mounted sheath on the side of the boat and sawed through it once it became slack once more.

“We don’t want to have a tail on our ship,” she muttered, letting the frayed end fall from the boat into the water. A moment later, she was glad she’d severed the rope, as Loki steered the craft over rough rocks that jutted up from the waters of Asgard.

“Loki?”

“If it were easy...everyone would do it,” the trickster said smoothly, aiming the craft for a cave in the tallest cliff.

“What the hell?!” Darcy squeaked, diving to wrap her arms around Loki’s legs.

“Are you mad?!”

“Possibly.”

The wings of the skiff screamed as they scraped against the walls of the narrow cave. Darcy couldn’t look, burying her face into the end of Loki’s coat like a security blanket and holding his shins so tightly that if he were a mortal man, she might be afraid of hurting him.

Then suddenly the scraping of metal against stone stopped.

“Ta-da!”

“Are we alive?”

“Alive and well, my Darcy,” he chuckled, sitting and leaning to rest one hand on the side of her head. “And in Svartalfheim.”

Finally, Darcy lifted her head, looking around anxiously.

Svartalfheim was  _desolate_ , the landscape empty but for ruins and wrecked ships. Something — instinct, maybe — told her that this was once the site of a devastating war, one that had eradicated the people that had lived here.

“It is lovely in its darkness, is it not?” Loki asked gently, as Darcy lifted herself to sit beside him.

“How many people died here?”

“Supposedly, all the dark elves, but _clearly_ Bor was mistaken on that front.” Loki huffed. “Odin’s own father committed genocide, and yet he condemned me for attempting it.”

“Svartalfheim was different, Loki,” Thor interrupted, turning back to them from where he had tucked Jane into a warm blanket. “They sought the destruction of all the realms of Yggdrasil, while the Frost Giants were effectively defenseless.”

“Uh, Thor,” Darcy began, slowly pushing herself up onto her feet. “That is honestly not a viable argument, and I’d advise that you just fucking _not_ _go there_.”

Thor’s expression hardened as he stepped back. “You do not need to constantly remind me of it; once is enough.”

“Not really, considering how many centuries you and your friends spent bullying him. I’ve barely even scratched the surface.” She took a deep breath, spinning on her heel to sit once more at Loki’s side. “Just don’t let me anywhere _near_ Odin, I don’t want to spend any more time in the dungeons. Two days and I was already losing my mind without the internet. So much funny stuff, so many cat videos...”

“All in good time, Darcy,” Loki soothed, shifting toward her slightly with a clattering of chain links. “These manacles are _infuriating_.”

Darcy huffed, leaning to rest her head on his shoulder. “So, we need to talk about a plan. We’re here, away from Asgard, but what’s the next step?”

“Hopefully, the Aether’s destruction.”

“Yes, but how to accomplish it when it floods your Jane’s system?” Loki’s tone spoke of sarcasm, but Darcy knew — she wasn’t sure how she knew, but she did — that his inquiry was not only honest, but one of concern.

“That is where you come in, brother. We trick Malekith into believing you to be a true enemy of Asgard by claiming that you come to deliver the very weapon they seek,” Thor explained, settling his broad frame onto one of the benches. “I had hoped you’d have some idea how to manage that part.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from _You're Gonna Listen_ by In This Moment.  
>   
>   
> Sorry it's so short, guys!! I just felt that the chapter had a _really_ natural stopping point where it was, and it'd also been a hot minute since I updated. Life. It has been kicking me in the behind.
> 
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> 
> It's a bit late, I know, but I've gone and made a playlist of the songs featured as chapter titles! [You can find it here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKT4sT5IxLOH4DV_AiXMrrhT5lZ1uDYUB) — I have every chapter named, and I have put the last three into the playlist


	11. I’ll be the diva of the damned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which answers are had, and death is averted.

“I don’t like it.” Darcy sat next to Loki, staring out over the desolate surface of Svartalfheim. The plan Thor and Loki had worked out was going to get one of the four of them _killed_. Too much hinged on delicate persuasion that, while she trusted Loki with it, Thor was going to fuck up. “I still say we should just make it look like all we’re doing is fleeing, and when they try to ambush us for her, we fuck up their lives.”

Loki’s laugh was like silk. “If the creature from the prisons is indeed with them, I would much rather face them in an open field, rather than on a partially ruined skiff.”

“The skiff would limit the number of them coming at us at a time,” she reminded, leaning her head into his shoulder. “If we leave the skiff, they can easily outnumber and surround us.”

“Unfortunately, that will be our best chance.”

Darcy sighed, pulling at her skirt. “I still don’t like it. Too much can go wrong.”

“A lot could go wrong either way, Darcy,” Thor interjected. “Hence the rest of the plan.”

“Which part says _we all leave alive and in one piece, respectively_?” Darcy huffed.

“The part where we kill our attackers.”

Well, _that_ was a wonderful thought. Darcy leaned back a little, wishing she had something to _do_ , like...like a movie to watch, or a book to read. Anything, really. Which was why she nearly fell out of the skiff as she realized that all of a sudden, a flash of golden light had emitted from her hand, and she was abruptly holding a worn leather-bound book.

“ _ **Holy fucking shit balls what the flying fuck?!?!”**_ she shrieked, tossing the book into the middle of the skiff. “What the fuck?!”

No one spoke for several seconds, staring at the book on the floor.

The first one to recover from the shock was Loki. “Darcy. Did you just summon that?”

“I think so,” she whined, turning to bury her face against Loki’s shoulder. “That’s not normal, is it?”

“No,” he muttered, shifting to nudge his nose into her hair, intended to comfort. “Not for you, it isn’t.”

Thor finally moved, leaning to lift the book and slowly open it — and then promptly sit down on the seat beside Jane, staring at the pages and carefully turning them.

“What is it?” Loki slowly stood, taking a half-step in Thor’s direction, holding his hands open for it.

“It is one of Mother’s books,” Thor whispered as he turned another page. “Hand-written. About magic and...riddles.” The god of thunder furrowed his brows. “Why would Mother write in riddles in her own book?”

“If it were meant for another to find,” Loki murmured, as if in prayer, looking from the book in Thor’s hands to the woman who had conjured it. “Darcy...” The young mortal in question curled into herself, staring at her own hands with wide eyes. “Darcy, don’t be frightened. This is...this is a monumental _gift_ , my Darcy.”

“Oh, yeah?” she squeaked, glancing up. “You got an answer for this?”

Loki paused, before abruptly yanking the book from Thor’s grip and flipping to the last page. The content of the page, however, led him to draw his brows together in confusion. “This is...it’s written to _Jane_...”

“Read it.”

At his soulmate’s request, so he did.

 

> _Dearest Jane,_
> 
> _I do hope that it is you that discovers this. If not, then the Aether has interfered as I hoped it would not. Do not be frightened of the sudden capability to summon things; it is merely a final gift I grant to you and Darcy alike. _

“Well,” Darcy huffed, glancing over at Jane’s slumbering form. “I guess the Aether _did_ interfere.”

“So it would seem,” Loki commented, before continuing.

 

> _I knew that I would not live long enough to teach you both magic. I took a risk in working this magic that has permitted you to discover this journal of mine — as I said, the Aether may have interfered, and if it has, then the reader of this letter may be confused._
> 
> _This is my journal of simple spell-work, largely from when I was newly married. Littered throughout are notes which Thor likely would call riddles. If you read them, however, you may find a solution therein that you did not see before. A bit of foresight, insight, and clarity. May this journal lead you to happiness. _
> 
> _Frigga_
> 
> _PS: if this book was summoned at Darcy’s hand, please turn the page, Loki. I fear the Aether’s interference may require it._

A moment passed, in which Loki flipped the page, before Darcy began to giggle. Small at first, the laughter quickly devolved into hysterics. “I have magic! Because the Aether fucked up a spell! A spell cast by the Queen of Asgard! Who I saw in my shower maybe ten minutes after she died! And then everything went to hell! And now I might die!” The laughter gave way to quiet, wracking sobs, as Darcy let herself fall forward into the skiff, covering her face in her hands.

“Darcy..” Loki’s voice lilted in concern, as he slowly sat down in the bottom of the skiff with her. “Come here.” She shook her head, wiping her nose on the tail of Jane’s blanket. “Please?”

“Let me wallow while you read,” she mumbled.

Loki laughed again, quiet and mirthless, before he began reading the second letter.

 

> _Darcy,_
> 
> _Please don’t be afraid. This was simply not the way I planned things to go. But, I believe there is a saying on Midgard that suits this circumstance. “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” And oh, how the plan this goddess has laid gone awry! _
> 
> _I did not write this spell with an Infinity Stone in mind to play against, and it was only when the Convergence drew within days of occurring that I saw my error. But by then, it was too late to modify the casting beyond a caveat that, should the Aether attempt to nullify the spell-work, it would retract into one of you._
> 
> _The original spell was written so that Jane would gain my books, knowledge, and foresight, while you, Darcy, would be granted the power to fight at my youngest son’s side in the form of my weapons, illusions, and the muscle memory of the dance of war. Now, you bear all of this. You may have noticed yourself realizing things that you have no way to know — the nature of the ruins of Svartalfheim, for example, and enough grasp of Dark El technology to wake one of their ships._
> 
> _Though this was not as I planned things, this is as the universe has planned them. You must not squander this gift, Darcy. Fight at my son’s side. Prove to the universe that you are Darcy, Soulmate of Loki, Intern to Jane Foster, She Who Tased Thor, and Savior of Small Beasts. _
> 
> _Make me proud._
> 
> _Frigga_

Those aboard the skiff were mostly silent, as Darcy’s sobs subsided slowly and she wiggled to rest her forehead against Loki’s thigh. “Is that all?” she whispered.

Loki closed the book, sending it into his own extra-dimensional storage before setting his hands on Darcy’s shoulder and head carefully. “There is another, small thing, but...we’ll get to that later.”

“If we survive.”

He laughed, a quiet, thick sound. “Oh, I think we will.”

* * *

It was a scream Darcy would never forget, ripped from her own throat and searing her vocal cords.

The initial confrontation had _mostly_ gone to plan — Malekith took the bait and pulled the Aether from Jane. Not a pretty sight, but hey, at least Jane wasn’t _dying_ anymore! Unfortunately, Thor’s lightning explosion wasn’t enough to destroy the Aether — Darcy could’ve told him that, even _before_ getting the brain boost from Frigga’s spell. It’s an Infinity Stone. Lighting, even god-lightning, isn’t enough to destroy an Infinity Stone.

Then the fight began in earnest. Six Dark Elves rounded on Loki, four of them cornered Darcy, and the beast of a man from the prisons went after Thor. It was terrifyingly easy to let the new instincts take over in the fight — to summon a blade nearly the length of her arm and slaughter her attackers one by one, and even jump in to aid her soulmate at one point, driving the sword through the Dark Elf’s spine even as they tried to attack Loki from behind.

Jane, of course, spent the whole fight on the sidelines, looking downright confused at the fact that _her intern could suddenly fight and do magic._ Darcy didn’t blame her.

The nail in the coffin was when she went to Jane to ensure that her boss and friend was okay, while Loki went after Malekith’s lieutenant. She’d had no inkling of his plan, so once she pulled Jane to her feet with a few muttered words, when she turned and saw the giant of an elf holding Loki to his chest, _impaled on a blade through his own chest_ —

**_“NO!”_ **

She took off running, vaulting over jagged rock and sliding to her knees — if she hadn’t been in a full-scale panic, she might’ve thought it was awesome — to Loki’s side, not even registering the black hole grenade detonating behind her as she put a hand over the wound.

“What can I do?” she whimpered, her other hand sliding into Loki’s mussed hair.

“Healing stones, Mother’s healing stones,” Loki gasped.

“Okay, okay, okay.” Darcy closed her eyes, pulling her hand from Loki’s chest, reaching into the extra-dimensional pocket she now had access to and pulling a leather bag forth, heavy with stones that would fit into her hands. She didn’t pause to ask Loki how to use the stones. She set the bag on the ground beside her, digging her hand into it and extracting one of the smooth gray stones.

Looking it over, she could see...it was as if she was suddenly experiencing double-vision. A thin halo of warm white energy seemed to emit from within the stone.

She paused for a moment, holding it in her palm, before pressing it into the wound.

 _In one side and out the other,_ came the unbidden thoughts. _Direct, whole application is recommended. Closely observe the wound for a few minutes in case a second stone is necessary._

Pulling her hand away, Darcy watched as a bright glow of white surrounded the injury, just translucent enough to see the ragged edges. Her breath hitched for a moment, before a laugh bubbled up from her throat in relief, watching the wound knit itself together, hearing Loki’s breathing even out.

“Oh, my Darcy,” Loki laughed, shoving himself upright without an issue, pressing his lips into hers. Darcy grabbed onto his shoulder, pulling him in for a desperate, hungry embrace. “You are a _wonder_ , my Darcy.”

“Don’t _ever_ do that again,” she gasped, half laugh, half sob. “Don’t make me watch you die. You’re supposed to be the one who's near immortal, damn it!”

“I will do my best, my Darcy,” he muttered, burying his face into her hair.

“Guys.”

Slowly, reluctantly, Darcy pulled away, looking up at the incredibly confused Jane.

“We need to get to Earth. Now.”

“Right!” Darcy nodded. “Convergence. End of the universe as we know it, courtesy of an Infinity Stone we let fall into the wrong hands. A good night’s sleep. A hot dinner. And hopefully a few days alone with my soulmate.” She wiggled her eyebrows at Loki. “Help me up, this armor bodice does _not_ do me any favors in terms of gracefulness.”

“I beg to differ,” Loki purred, punctuating the comment with a wink before gracefully rising to his feet and pulling Darcy to hers. “Though I won’t be able to be... _me_ , on Earth.”

Darcy laughed, tugging him after her towards a cave not far from their present position. “Come on. I think we can figure something out, Mr. Magic.”

“Where are we going?” Jane called.

“A route from here to Earth, courtesy of the Convergence,” Darcy replied. “Just so happens to lead _straight_ back to the warehouse district where we almost got arrested for trespassing. Where, y’know, a bunch of kids were throwing shit into the anomalies. So there should be some convenient stuff lying around here.”

“You’re kidding, that led _here_?”

“Not kidding in the slightest, Jane,” Darcy laughed. “As such, this is our best route back to our world. Loki, can you make yourself look like a random guy in typical human cold weather clothes?”

At the cave mouth, Darcy turned, finding herself holding the hand of a shorter, lighter-haired man in a navy down-filled jacket, jeans, and a layered pair of tee shirts. “Will this work?” he asked — still in Loki’s familiar voice, bright with mischief — gesturing broadly with his free hand.

“Almost,” Darcy commented, looking him over. “The voice is a dead giveaway. Try taking the volume up a bit.”

“Like this?”

“Perfect! And we’ll call you Ian for now.” Darcy looked over at Thor and Jane. “Got that? This is _**Ian**_. I’ll need my clothes back. And we’re going to need to find Erik.”

“Probably a good idea to have a cover for him, then,” Jane agreed, easing into the cave. “You were right, there’s a lot of stuff in here.”

Loki pulling his soulmate in close, fingers tracing over her temple. “How is it one as young as you is so incredibly _intelligent_?”

“The universe paired me with you,” she purred, taking advantage of the lower height different to sling her arms over his shoulders. “Obviously, I had to be smart as a reward for you dealing with centuries of Thor’s dumbass tendencies.”

“What a fitting reward indeed,” he breathed, pressing an almost chaste kiss to her lips. “All that remains is being able to enjoy it.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt we’ll have time,” she smirked.

“Hey, lovebirds!” Jane called. “World in peril? People probably going to die?”

“We have enough time to have dinner, Jane,” Darcy called back, “and retrieve Erik from wherever he’s gotten to — aw, crap.” She turned to Loki. “Think you can create an illusion of false identification that’s good enough to fool cops?”

“Why?”

“If the wave of anxiety I just got is indication enough, Erik got himself locked up in the name of Science,” Darcy sighed. “And he needs someone he’s related to to get him out of it, which we need, because I haven’t the slightest idea how the hell we’re going to actually do this. Think you can pull it off?”

Loki spread his hands wide. “Am I not the God of Lies?”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And some of the things teased in earlier notes come to fruition! Herein we see my answer to the lack of Ian, and oh boy, Darcy can suddenly do magic!
> 
> Yes, I handwaved my way past the fight. It was giving me a headache.


End file.
